


Professional Work

by bakedgarnet



Category: Incredibles (Pixar Movies)
Genre: F/F, Professor AU, Supers vs Non-Supers, Urbem Heights University, radicalized tension between two groups
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-06-17 10:25:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15459279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakedgarnet/pseuds/bakedgarnet
Summary: Urbem Heights University has just opened its doors to non-Supers who want to pursue crime fighting, and Professor Helen Truax helps the new director of the Technology Department, Dr. Evelyn Deavor, find her footing in the quickly changing institution. As they grow closer, tensions between Supers and non-Supers grow on campus following a hateful prank pulled on the quad that make the two professors analyze what side they’re really on, but also their feelings for each other.





	1. Eighty-Nine Percent

“Remember, your syllabus is online. If I were you all, I’d print it out and keep it on hand throughout the semester. Read it.  _ Carefully _ .” Helen Truax said to her class, fingers steepled in front of her sternum. She stared up at the eager, young faces in the elevated rows of the lecture hall she taught in. She loved the beginning of the first semester with her college freshmen, all bright eyed and desperate to save the world someday. She dismissed them five minutes early, feeling no need to keep them once they had covered the bare essentials of what was required for the course, and watched as they slowly gathered their things and shuffled out of the back entrance in groups of three or more. She felt her shoulders relax as they filed out, no longer under the intense gazes of nearly fifty young adults.

 

One figure remained, one that she hadn’t noticed initially, but she sat in the very last row, on the innermost side, with her feet kicked up onto the back of the seat in front of and below her. Her short hair was a style of organized chaos, as if she had spent more than a short while attempting to get the fresh-out-of-bed look down just right. Helen’s mouth opened wordlessly as she squinted high up at the stranger before she set her fist on her hip, jutting it out to the side.

 

“Excuse me, class is dismissed,” she said, “and can you please get your feet off of my chairs?” 

 

The woman slowly kicked one leg over the side into the aisle before the other one followed, and she stood to her full height. Her slouched position before had made her appear younger than she was.

 

“Do I look like an eighteen year old to you?” The voice that carried down to her was low and raspy, a clear maturity in it that spoke to her true age.

 

“What am I supposed to think when you’re sitting in my classroom with you feet up like some kid with no home training?” Helen’s arms crossed over her chest as she spoke, leaning back and half-sitting on the surface of her desk.

 

The woman walked with slow, confident strides down the many shallow stairs until she reached the third one from the bottom of the middle aisle. In the better lighting, Helen could see her droopy-eyed gaze and tired smile. It was one of quiet amusement, Helen assumed, probably entertained by the ire she had already provoked in her. She tried to stop looking so defensive and dropped her arms down to her sides.

 

“Does such a prestigious university usually hire people with no home training to run an entire department here, or…” 

 

Helen’s eyes went wide, and her heart jumped into her throat as she stood up straight, brushing invisible dust from her pants and straightening her shirt out.

 

“Oh, my God, Dr. Deavor!” Helen said too loudly, shoving her hand out for a handshake out of pure reflex. She could feel the heat suffusing in her cheeks, sure that a deep blush had turned her entire face pink. 

 

“I am  _ so _ sorry, I didn’t know—” 

 

“Didn’t know that I was coming today, or didn’t know I was a woman? It’s 2018 and you’re still gender biased? How sad,” the professor said with a slow smile and a glint in her eyes, taking Helen’s hand in her own for one brief, strong handshake.

 

“And call me Evelyn. You sound like your students.”

 

Helen withdrew her hand after they had shaken, and gripped her own index finger with it. She had to stop herself from tugging the elastic digit, from twisting and untwisting it around her other finger in a display of nervousness.

 

“Dicker said that a ‘Dr. Deavor’ was coming to oversee the new technology department, and that he wanted me to be ready to give a tour of the campus by the end of the day, but… I have to apologize, he never showed me a face.”

 

Evelyn shrugged it off, waving her hand through the air in an flippant, dismissive gesture. She crossed her arms over her chest, bunching up the expensive-looking material of her black and white button-down. Helen found herself taking a deep breath to ease her still-pounding heart.

 

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I won’t dock you points for the grade I give your tour,” she said with a growing smile that let Helen know that she was joking.

 

Helen walked around her desk, still mostly facing Evelyn, and began to gather up all of her materials. Thankfully, it was the first class of the year, so all she had to collect were a few extra syllabi and her laptop. Placing it all in her light backpack and slinging it over her shoulders, she stepped back around and stood in front of the new professor with a polite smile. 

 

“After you,” she gestured toward the exit up the stairs. Evelyn didn’t move though, instead opting to turn her body in a small circle and gesture at the room around them.

 

“Aren’t you going to tell me about your room first? I have to be a bit curious about any class with half-charred humanoid punching dummies.” 

 

Helen gave a soft laugh and turned her gaze over to the figures in question. Seven of them stood lined up on large blue mats on the far end of the room, all sporting varying degrees of damage. She took several steps over to the area, hearing the click of Evelyn’s heeled footfalls following behind her.

 

“Well, this is a hand-to-hand combat course. I teach students how to marry martial arts with whatever abilities they may have. This one,” Helen said, running her hands over the crispy face of the one Evelyn had pointed out, “came into contact with two very easily excitable pyrokinetics. One is currently in one of my other sections, and the other graduated two years ago… now publicly known as Fironic.”

 

Evelyn looked impressed, her pale eyes roving over the other dummies with interest. “ _ You _ trained Fironic?”

 

Helen felt herself glow with pride, holding her head a bit higher, she said, “Yes I did.”

 

“Hm,” Evelyn hummed, “you’re gaining points,  _ Elastigirl _ .”

 

Helen was momentarily startled by the use of her hero name before she realized that Rick Dicker would have given Evelyn, now a member of the administration and therefore bound under the same secrecy as the rest of them, both names of the woman meant to show her around at her new work place.

 

It was strange having non-Supers in the building since their new integration policy. The only reason that they could blur the lines between their secret identities and their hero-personas at this school in the past was because, in an institution of Supers, it was important to build trust within the community between them all  _ as Supers _ . Now that an influx of students and professors with no extraordinary abilities had shifted the population of the school, Helen was unsure how she felt about having her secret identity blurred with her hero identity so publicly.

 

“I  _ was _ one of those overachievers in school, so now if I get anything less than a hundred I think I might be angry.”

 

Evelyn’s lips turned up in a smirk, finally turning those restless blue eyes onto her.

 

“I guess you’d better work for it, then,” she winked.

 

Helen felt her face warm yet again, hastily clearing her throat and gesturing toward the exit once more.

 

“Would you like to see the rest of the school now?”

 

Evelyn shrugged one shoulder, drumming her fingers on her folded arms, “I’m following you.”

 

Helen lead her around the entire campus. It wasn’t terribly small, but it was a relatively new establishment in the center of Urbem Heights, and therefore not awarded much in the way of land to build on. Most things stacked on top of each other rather than sprawling outward. People generally enjoyed the close-knit feel of all the departments, but others lamented the lack of space to breathe without another breathing down their back. The three skinny buildings were built shoulder to shoulder, the one in the center boasting twenty floors while the ones on either side of it held ten. 

 

The first place that Helen showed Evelyn was the quad at the front of the university. As far as size went, it did not have a ton of land to work with, but the towering trees on either side of the two outer buildings and massive, pristinely kept lawn were enough to draw awe from anyone. A fifteen foot tall statue of Dynaguy stood proud in the center of a fountain perpetually spewing water at the heart of the circle-shaped quad. The grass was outlined with an equally circle cobblestone pathway that led from the sidewalk, around the front lawn, up to all three separate doors of the buildings.

 

Helen showed her the dining hall next, a fast paced sea of fresh faces back from summer break and casually displaying their powers in the smallest things that they did. Those with fire affinities heating their food with their hands, telekinetics feeding food into their mouths with their minds while their hands were occupied by the keyboard of a laptop or their cellphones, psychic types unknowingly projecting their hunger and frustration onto the room as they impatiently stood in line for lunch.

 

All of it left Evelyn Deavor with wide, curious eyes, a look of fascination on her face that made Helen proud to be a Super.

 

On their tour, Helen learned that the technology department was exclusively for the non-Supers they had recently allowed to enroll into the university. She knew that Evelyn wasn’t a Super herself, briefed by Dicker on at least that much. Evelyn was to teach those without powers how to do work behind the scenes for or alongside their super-powered partners. She specialized in weapon’s engineering, but also taught coding and hacking techniques. She was apparently one of seven new professors hired to teach in that department, and her classroom was to be directly above Helen’s. 

 

When the tour ended, the two ended up in a cafe a block away from the campus, still owned by the school and both run and frequented by the university’s students. Helen grabbed their drinks and sat down at the small table Evelyn was holding for them. The window they sat beside showed the bright afternoon sun glaring down at Urbem Heights. Evelyn held her chin in her palm, staring out onto the sidewalk as people rushed past.

 

Helen gently moved her backpack out of the way with her foot before sitting down and placing their hot drinks onto the rickety wooden table. “So, how did I do?”

 

“Hm?” Evelyn made a noise of confusion, seemingly blinking out of whatever daydream she had been having and turning tired blue eyes onto her with a raised eyebrow. Her hands reached out and wrapped around her mug of coffee. Black.

 

“With the tour. What was my score?” She asked, only half joking. 

 

The smile that barely tugged at the corners of Evelyn’s mouth was an entertained one.

 

“Eighty-nine percent,” she declared smugly. 

 

Helen’s eyes shot wide open, brows drawing down over her nose, “ _ Eighty-nine percent _ —!“

 

“Will you keep your voice down?” Evelyn hissed.

 

“What happened to the last eleven points?” Helen asked more quietly this time with deep offence in her tone.

 

“I wanted to see a fight,” Evelyn shrugged, bringing the coffee mug up to her lips and sipping at it slowly. She winced a bit at the inevitably scalding temperature.

 

“A  _ what _ ?”

 

“I wanted to see some Supers battling it out on the quad or something, but it didn’t happen. So eighty-nine percent,” Evelyn explained as if her rubric for the grading made an ounce of logical sense.

 

“Are you kidding me?” Helen asked, astonished.

 

“Are you taking me that seriously?” Evelyn laughed, placing the mug back down and drawing her tongue over her upper lip to wipe away any residual coffee, or to soothe whatever ache the burning liquid had brought to her mouth. Helen tried her best not to stare as she did it.

 

“You said…” Helen deflated as she realized she had, in fact, taken Evelyn’s fake grade of her touring job far more seriously than the other woman had intended for it to be.

 

“Oh, Helen… so uptight,” Evelyn grinned, as if she was just endlessly thrilled by Helen’s perpetually flustered behavior around her.

 

“Are you always so condescending?”

 

Evelyn raised an eyebrow at the question, poking her bottom lip out as she stared up at the ceiling, feigning deep thought.

 

“Yes… and no.”

 

“What does that mean?” Helen asked, her white tea forgotten in front of her as she leaned forward just slightly, pulled in so effortlessly by this enigma of a woman.

 

“It means I enjoy messing with you. Feel free to stop making this amusing for me by not blushing so much,” Evelyn said. Her low-lidded eyes never left Helen’s as she spoke, keeping her so solidly in place that the only reason she was able to break eye contact was because suddenly her name was booming from the entrance of the cafe.

 

“Helen!” 

 

She turned her head then, spotting Bob Parr waving his comically large hand in the air at her. With a bubbling laugh, she returned the wave, feeling released from the grip that Evelyn had tightened around her without moving a muscle. She stood as Bob walked over to give her long time friend a proper hug.

 

“Bob, it’s so great to see you! How were your kids on their first day?” 

 

Bob rubbed his hand across his forehead beneath his baseball cap, fingers digging into the skin there as if he were trying to massage out a headache.

 

“I don’t know why they keep giving me Supers without natural strength. I don’t know how to teach them to  _ get _ this strong, I only know what to do with the strength once they have it!” He was visibly exasperated, and the cap over his blond hair was drenched around the edges with sweat. Helen rubbed his arm sympathetically and remembered her shadow still sitting down beside where she stood.

 

“ _ Oh,  _ Bob, this is Professor Evelyn Deavor. She’ll be working in the new technology department they opened up above me. I just finished showing her around campus.”

 

Bob leaned around Helen to extend his massive hand out to her, and Evelyn’s hand was engulfed by his as she shook it. 

 

“Welcome to the team!” He smiled down at her politely, and she returned it with the upward quirk of her lips and a reserved nod.

 

“Bob works in the fitness and strength program at the university. Mostly with our athletes, but they’ve had him teaching a strength management course for the past couple of years,” Helen explained, reclaiming her recently abandoned seat across from Evelyn.

 

Bob absently scratched at his stomach while he stood beside the table, and looked between the two of them with a look of confusion spreading across his face.

 

“Hold on, Dicker’s got  _ you _ showing her around campus? Doesn’t he usually give the tours himself?”

 

“Well, sure,  _ typically… _ ” Helen shrugged, “He didn’t say why, he just said he needed me to fill in.”

 

Bob shrugged himself, nodding twice and conceding without further questions.

 

“Hey, well listen, I need to get going, but I just wanted to say hi. You don’t go out for lunch with me anymore,” he said, a small frown line forming between his thick eyebrows.

 

“Right, because you’re married now and it’d be inappropriate,” Helen reminded him with an amused grin. She had met Bob’s new wife in passing several times, and was pleased to see that she was someone who would be good to him. 

 

“Mirage knows we’re just friends.” Bob lifted both of his massive hands into the air between them, waving off her concern.

 

“She also knows we dated in college,” Helen said, raising an eyebrow at him.

 

Bob sighed defeatedly, pursing his lips in a displeased smile. “I guess you’re right.”

 

“I know I am.”

 

“Anyway,” Bob sighed hugely, “I need to go. I’ll see you both around. Nice meeting you, Professor Deavor.”

 

Evelyn gave a slight wave comprised of nothing but the wiggling of her fingers as Helen said her own goodbyes. Once they were alone again, Evelyn finished off the last of her coffee. She must have been downing it in the brief moment that Bob was around because the mugs that the cafe served their drinks in were huge.

 

“So, is he the one who got away?” Evelyn asked, setting her empty mug down on the table between them. Her weight had shifted, causing the rickety table to lean to the other side and she steadied it with her hand before realizing that it was still stable.

 

“Who, Bob?” Helen laughed, shaking her head fondly, “God no. We dated for a few years in college and both of us realized we wanted separate things. He’s still one of my best friends, but I wouldn’t call him  _ the one who got away _ ,” Helen said.

 

Evelyn hummed in acknowledgement and nodded her head slowly, scratching at the top of the table with a blunt, yet perfectly manicured index fingernail.

 

“Are you married?” She asked after a pause.

 

Helen tried to search her face for the reason why that question felt more loaded than it should have been, but she found nothing.

 

“No,” she said, “why?”

 

“Just… trying to get to know my lovely tour guide,” Evelyn said, finally looking into her eyes with some burning flicker of recognition deep in her gaze. Helen had nothing to hide, and yet it felt like Evelyn was looking right through her, piercing through something she hadn’t even known was there.

 

Helen swallowed heavily.

 

“I can’t be all that lovely at eighty-nine percent,” she grumbled before taking a long sip of her still steaming tea.

 

The look that crossed Evelyn’s face was one of genuine amusement, a pleasant upward quirk of her lips making her look softer somehow.

 

“Oh,  _ please _ . The tour might have been a B plus, but I’d probably give  _ you _ a hundred percent. If we were grading that,” she said with a sly smile and a quirked eyebrow. Her hands absently played with the empty coffee mug, holding it by the sides and turning the bottom against the table like a spinning quarter decreasing in speed.

 

Helen dropped her gaze down to Evelyn’s hands to avoid looking at that knowing glint in her tired, blue eyes. Something swirled, entirely out of control, deep in her stomach. It wasn’t volatile, just curious, and she wanted so badly to figure out what the hell it wanted from her.

 

“Well, maybe you’ll have to update the rubric,” she said quietly.

 

“Don’t clam up on me now, Helen.”

 

She could see Evelyn tilt her head a bit to try and catch her eyes, and she relented without much of a fight.

 

She had a feeling that Evelyn would be getting her to do a lot of that in the very near future and beyond.

  
  



	2. Preening, If You Will.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen learns a lot more about Professor Deavor, the enigmatic new head of the technology department. Perhaps a bit more than she had expected.

Professor Evelyn Deavor, for all of her quiet intensity and teasing demeanor, was far less than put together. The fourth day of classes was the next time that Helen ran into the other woman, watching in perplexed fascination as she hefted an arm full of bags and other materials out of the passenger seat of her sports car. A wide brimmed black hat cast a shadow down over her face from the sunny sky, and the long, flowing cloth of her light jacket breezed around her legs as the wind slipped through the air around her. She had bags and rolled up schematics, it seemed like, overflowing from the arms that she used to clutch them to her person, and kicked the door closed with her heeled foot after several missed tries.

 

“Need a hand?” Helen called out eventually, growing far more stressed than she had anticipated at watching Evelyn pull herself together.

 

Eyes covered by oversized sunglasses jerked up along with Evelyn’s head as she turned toward Helen’s voice abruptly.

 

“Huh? No, I—“ she dropped her weight down to tighten her grip on a slipping plastic bag, “I got it. Thanks.”

 

Her voice was breathless, and an embarrassed smile consisting of a hint of white teeth flashed at the other professor. Helen decided to ignore her answer and stepped forward anyway, looping her other arm through her own backpack so that she was more balanced when she went to grab two of the bags and a previously concealed toolbox from Evelyn’s arms.

 

“What on earth is all of this? The university supplies materials for the professors here, you know. If you didn’t get yours, I could talk to Rick about the oversight—”

 

Evelyn cut her off, straightening her posture with mumbled thanks as some of the load was taken off of her body. She was able to walk in a relatively straight line and even lock her car doors as they moved steadily toward the front entrance of the center building.

 

“No, I got the school’s materials. I just feel more comfortable working with my own stuff. It’s bad enough I have to work outside of my lab… the least I can do is bring as much of my shit here as possible.” They reached the massive sliding glass doors and waited for them to automatically open before stepping inside. The cool air of the building swarmed them both, and Helen felt goosebumps raise on her exposed arms.

 

“You… have your own lab?” Helen asked, surprise coloring her tone. She knew that Evelyn had her doctorate, but had hardly considered that the woman beside her would have been holed up in a fluorescent lit lab somewhere tinkering all day. From the money she so clearly reeked of, Helen’s greatest guess would have been that she just rubbed elbows with business men and had other people who did the heavy work for her.

 

Scolding herself for making snap judgements, but also for not paying attention, she forced herself to tune back into what Evelyn was saying.

 

“Where do you think the magic of DevTech happens? Santa’s toy shop is what my brother likes to call it, but instead of a thousand little elves running around it’s just me and a Spanish coffee with jazz blasting through the speakers, trying to make as much shit as I can before I crash.” Evelyn spoke far quicker than usual, her hands obviously used to making a lot of gestures as she spoke because they kept making half-movements around the schematics and bags still in her arms. Helen was finally able to put together why she seemed so much more erratic than when they had first met, and spotted the venti-sized cup of coffee that she held to her chest beneath her chin. It was mostly covered by the heap of other things she carried, which was why Helen hadn’t noticed it before.

 

She was staving off a chuckle when something that Evelyn said popped back into her mind.

 

“Wait, _DevTech_ ? _You’re_ the inventor behind DevTech?” she noted that her voice was getting far too loud, and several students that they passed on their way to the elevator turned to look at them in surprise before going back to their business.

 

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t mention that?” Evelyn asked, briefly turning to look up at Helen before facing forward again. Half of her face was hidden behind her sunglasses.

 

Helen pressed the button to the elevator, and the doors opened immediately. As they stepped in, she said, “I knew that there was a woman behind the company products, but I had no idea… No one’s ever seen your face connected to DevTech I don’t think.” The astonishment that settled into her stomach also made her eyes go wide, and she was having a tough time schooling her expression back into one of neutrality.

 

“Eh, well… I don’t like the media much. Too far up everyone’s asses, you know? Plus, Winston loves it, so he hogs up all the attention and I get to do what I want. It’s a win-win,” Evelyn said.

 

Their ride up to the Technology department was filled with Helen’s questions of the _how_ ’s and _why’_ s of Evelyn trading jobs out of the blue, and essentially the inventor heard the news that Urbem Heights University had finally opened its doors to non-Supers for a selective weapons engineering and computer science program and jumped at the chance to spearhead the infant department. She had created enough new products to keep DevTech on track with even future demands for quite some time, and decided to venture into teaching. Apparently, it had always been a secret dream of hers.

 

When they made their way to Evelyn’s massive classroom, Helen was struck by the renovation they had done on the floor. Magnetically operated floating tables and chairs, a touch-activated holographic drawing board that replaced the whiteboard that had been against the wall previously, and several interesting touch screens built into the walls that controlled lord-knew-what. Helen tried to keep her jaw from going slack, but when Evelyn revealed that Rick Dicker had contacted her about redesigning the Technology department herself, Helen came to terms with the fact that she was just going to have to continuously feel overwhelmed.

 

“Hey, don’t look so intimidated. It’s nothing compared to being a human rubberband,” Evelyn said.

 

Helen merely shook her head as she looked around Evelyn’s classroom, which essentially had the same layout as her own plus far more screens, and instead of a section for hand-to-hand combat, there were rows of additional desks with computers so advanced she had never even seen anything like them before.

 

“That’s gonna be mostly used for hackathons, but I leave my doors unlocked so that my kids can come in here and work if they need to. I’ve noticed that this department brings out a lot of competitive overachievers, and while I’m reminded that I was them once, I can’t help but be also reminded of our little coffee date.” The little smirk that appeared on her lips seemed even more flirtatious with her eyes concealed.

 

The jolt that zinged through Helen’s body nearly made her drop the things in her hands as she attempted to set them down on Evelyn’s desk.

 

“I- I wouldn’t call that a date,” she laughed nervously, avoiding Evelyn’s gaze even though it was blocked by the giant lenses of her sunglasses. In that moment, though, the other professor removed both her hat and the glasses to reveal light blue eyes that sparkled with amusement. The bags beneath them were defined, and Helen briefly wondered if the coffee was to make up for not sleeping _at all_ the night before.

 

“Take a joke, _Elastigirl_. You know, for a woman as flexible as you are, you’re always so tense,” Evelyn grinned. With her arms now free, she leaned her forearms on the edge of her desk, the surface of it tall enough to reach her midsection. The coffee cup sat right beside her overlapping hands, and Helen huffed out an annoyed breath.

 

“Well, if this is everything, then I think I’m going to head back to my office and finish prepping my lesson plan for next week,” Helen said.

 

She didn’t like the curious thing that continued to whip her stomach into a flurry of tiny, beating wings. Her agitation was clearly borne from something other than the teasing— she had never been sensitive in her life— but the moment to figure out what it was did not have space to exist right in front of the woman who so effortlessly stirred it up. Helen turned on her heel with a pensive wave and made her way toward the door, a frown tugging at the space between her eyebrows and an unsteadiness easing into the marrow of her bones.

 

“Hey, wait,” Evelyn said, an edge of something just a fraction as panicked as what was happening inside of Helen making those two words seem sharper than they probably intended to be.

 

Helen paused anyway, and turned only partially to look behind her shoulder.

 

“I’m just messing around, you know that right? If I made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”

 

Swallowing heavily, but not turning completely back to face her, Helen nodded twice and cleared her throat.

 

“It’s alright,” Helen murmured before pushing the side entrance door, meant for administration only, wide open. She didn’t have one in her room; this one let off into the staff offices directly from Evelyn’s lecture hall.

 

Suddenly out of the space with her, Helen felt like she could take a full breath again, and then she tried not to think about what that meant.

 

* * *

 

That following Saturday, Helen was holed up in her office instead of at home, with classical music filtering in through her wireless headphones and her fingers typing away at her laptop. The silence of her own home was enough to make her go a bit stir-crazy, so she opted to get a jump on her lesson plans for the year. She was creating a slideshow that demonstrated the importance of learning to execute the many styles of martial arts they were to learn without utilizing their powers— because there _would_ be a situation they’d land themselves in where either their powers were gone or useless— when a shadow that cast over her desk made her jump.

 

She tore one headphone out and clutched it in one hand, throwing the other one to grab at her chest in shock.

 

“God _damn_ it, Evelyn,” Helen yelled.

 

“I called your name five times. Turn the Beethoven down, and maybe you could hear.” Evelyn wore a sleepy smile as her arms crossed over her chest. A fluffy white cardigan was wrapped around her shoulders, a testament to the cool autumn weather outside. Her shoulders were drawn into herself, and she looked much more like the hazy, sleepy woman Helen had first encountered.

 

“Sorry,” Helen murmured guiltily, pausing her music from her laptop and taking the other earbud out before placing them both atop her desk. She leaned back in her office chair and rested her hands in her lap.

 

“Eh, don’t worry about it. Just stopped in to say hi. I’ll leave you to your work,” she said, far more reserved than Helen had been anticipating. She wondered if her own abrupt exit the last time they had seen each other had something to do with it, and felt remorse build on her tongue.

 

“Wait,” Helen said before even knowing what exactly it was she wanted her to wait _for_ , “how’re, uh, classes… going?”

 

Evelyn seemed surprised by her question, her little upward quirk of shock softening the sharp angles of her face somehow.

 

“Oh, well, they’re actually pretty good. My freshmen are engaged and _really_ damn smart. I’m impressed. They’re even asking for harder material already, which is shocking, so I came in to rework my lesson plan. Move some things for later in the year to earlier,” she shrugged. Helen could tell that she was cutting herself off though, likely restrained by the thought that she had probably said far too much around her in the past. She cursed herself now for allowing Evelyn to think that she, alone, was the reason behind her discomfort before. Helen knew that it was more to do with her own stupid thoughts than Evelyn’s actions.

 

She figured it would be best to throw her a bone.

 

“Aw, that’s great to hear. What else? Any kids standing out?”

 

Evelyn brought the pen in her hand that Helen had overlooked before up to her chin in thought, tapping it there several times.

 

“Well… there is one. I forget his first name, last name is Rydinger. I was teaching his section a bit about how our biotechnology, when it comes to Supers, has to be fine tuned because there’s scientific proof of different brain chemistry between those with powers and those without. I was giving the example of how Supers tend to be able to subconsciously increase and decrease the gray matter in their brains in order to achieve a greater pain tolerance in high stress situations. Higher gray matter in the cingulate cortex and precuneus leads your bodies to sort of… gloss over the injuries, so to speak.”

 

Evelyn shook her head a bit, shoving her arms back across her chest from where they had ventured off into sleepily moving hand gestures and probably realizing that she had begun rambling. Helen smiled warmly, properly endeared.

 

“Anyway, the kid kept asking question after question, getting oddly specific until I practically ran out of time, and we didn’t end up getting to the end of my slides. He was probably just trying to run time down— I know how they can get overwhelmed. The course _does_ move pretty fast,” Evelyn said.

 

Helen chewed on her bottom lip as she considered Evelyn’s words.

 

“Different brain chemistry, huh? I never knew that,” she said.

 

“Do _you_ have a PhD in biology?” Evelyn asked, implying that she, herself, also held a biology doctorate alongside her one in engineering, and Helen felt her face fall into one of shock once again before she schooled her expression back to something that didn’t run the risk of inflating Evelyn’s ego even larger.

 

“Or access to Google?” Evelyn tacked on as an afterthought, a slow smirk coming to her full lips playfully.

 

“I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that bragging was impolite,” Helen said.

 

Evelyn jutted her hip out to the side, cocking her head ever so slightly until the short waves of her hair flopped down over her eye.

 

“And here I thought I was trying to impress you. Preening, if you will.”

 

Helen’s neck grew hot at the bold admission, and she moved her hands from her lap to tightly grip the arms of her seat. She needed to steady herself; Evelyn always had her so _off balance._

 

“I think your people skills could use some work,” she said, trying her best not to sound as wobbly as she was on the inside, and unsure if she succeeded.

 

Helen didn’t know what to do about the visceral reaction that she had to Evelyn every time they were around each other. It was as if they were two planets hurtling toward each other through space, inevitably bound to crash, but Helen was the only one valiantly trying to delay the impact. Evelyn was looking into the face of the impending destruction and _smiled_ at it, daring it to rip her apart.

 

Helen wondered how it felt to step into fire so freely.

 

Evelyn pretended to be scolded, dropping her head down in faux-shame before turning tilting it back up and showing Helen just a flash of teeth exposed in a half grin.

 

It was like flashing a gun at a hostage.

 

“Well, I’ll give you that. Any chance you’ll let me keep practicing?”

 

Licking her dry lips, Helen took a deep breath and leaned forward on her desk. Her forearms rested against the edge, and she stared Evelyn down.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Evelyn lazily raised an eyebrow at her, the smile still playing on her full lips.

 

“If it wasn’t painfully obvious before, I’m pretty sure I’m flirting with you.”

 

Helen huffed a disbelieving laugh through her lips, breezing a stray strand of auburn hair out of her face.

 

“Did Dicker not explain, in detail, the strict no-fraternization policy at this university?” She felt her entire body warm upon addressing what had been unspoken between them for a week now, and her heart thumped erratically in her chest.

 

“Don’t get me wrong, he did. But… I’m bad with authority,” she said whimsically, “and you’re a beautiful woman. What can I say?”

 

Helen’s lips parted, but nothing came out for a long moment except for a gust of air that she had to remind herself to release.

 

Attempting with every last bit of will she had to get her breathing back under control, Helen said slowly and quietly, “I don’t think risking my job for a one night stand is just _wrong_ , quite frankly I think it’s pretty stupid— and so should you.”

 

Evelyn uncrossed her arms and braced her hands on the other side of Helen’s desk, leaning in while her short and manicured nails just barely dug into the polished, white wood. The pen in her left hand was trapped between her palm and the desk. Helen felt like the pressure in her chest mimicked it.

 

“Then feel free to call me an idiot when I say that I’m willing to risk my job for much more than one night,” she said lowly, the husky timbre of her voice shooting something hot and dangerous through Helen’s veins.

 

She looked deeply into those tired blue eyes across from her, leveled with a sort of clarity and focus that had previously gone missing in what was presumably Evelyn’s exhaustion. She was devoid of makeup today, and the darkness beneath her heavy gaze was more prominent than before. Short, chestnut colored tendrils of hair brushed over her forehead and barely hid her perfectly arched eyebrows. She looked serene despite her clear lack of sleep, but also despite what she was proposing in that very moment.

 

She wanted to jump so badly after her into the ocean of tension that Evelyn had clearly already dove into head first. She wanted to wrap her arms around her as they fell, and she wanted them to be submerged together. A lover’s embrace into turbulent waters.

 

Helen hesitantly shifted one hand forward from where it was resting atop her desk, and without breaking eye contact, she placed it over one of Evelyn’s.

 

Her thin fingers were cold.

 

Evelyn turned her palm upward, capturing Helen’s hand in hers and curling around it with a triumphant smile.

 

Helen cursed her weakness because she _knew better_ , but she also knew herself. She knew that she couldn’t have kept her distance forever.

 

“We’ll be careful, I promise,” Evelyn murmured into the deafening silence of the office.

 

And for some reason unbeknownst to herself, Helen believed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate summary: the sleepy disaster lesbian always gets her way and Helen lives for making life more complicated for herself.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and starting on the journey of a new fic with me! Much love to you all!
> 
> Updates will be on Tuesdays and Friday's. Sound familiar?
> 
> If you aren't already, come yell about hevelyn with me over on Tumblr: bakedgarnet.tumblr.com


	3. What Makes Them Tick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen takes Evelyn up on an offer.

Helen got to avoid the stifling silence of her own home for even longer than she anticipated because she currently sat in Evelyn Deavor’s prodigally decorated house. The luxury condo had dark wooden floors and ceilings that still shined as if freshly waxed in the natural light that poured in through the massive pyramid skylight above. The walls, painted a tame beige, were donned in art of all varieties— canvases with abstract paintings to pinned up fabrics decorated with elaborate embroidery of expressive faces and partially nude bodies. 

 

The black leather couch on which Helen sat upon felt heavenly beneath her, allowing her to sink into it like an embrace from a dark cloud.

 

“More wine?” Evelyn asked from beside her. She was close enough that their thighs touched, feeling like an overheating furnace against her leg. Helen was already feeling floaty from her first three glasses, but something about Evelyn’s voice in her ear made her nod her head.

 

She watched the blood red liquid pour into her rounded glass, and then Evelyn’s was refilled as well. 

 

She smelled like expensive perfume, something celestial and heady.

 

“You know, I really am sorry about coming off so strong at first,” Evelyn murmured, setting the nearly empty gargantuan bottle back down on the coffee table with a soft  _ thunk _ .

 

Helen waved her hand through the air in front of her, “Stop, don’t apologize.”

 

“No, no, I should. I’m not… the  _ best _ at reading the room, so to speak. Probably worse at being subtle,” she chuckled lowly into her drink, pressing the half-full glass to her lips and taking a long sip from it. She ran her tongue over her top lip to catch a stray red droplet, and Helen felt the muscles in her stomach and back tense.

 

“But there was just something about you… and I couldn’t help myself. I think I teased you so much because it made me feel like I had control over the situation, but truthfully, I’ve just been trying to keep my head above water. You… captivate me, Helen Truax.”

 

Helen grew impossibly warmer at the liquored confession. She knew that her face was flushed from more than just the wine, and couldn’t bring herself to even attempt to bring it back under control.

 

“You barely know me,” she managed to say, stronger and more clear than she anticipated.

 

“That’s the scary part, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked rhetorically, tilting her glass toward Helen for emphasis before finishing it off. She sat it on the table beside the bottle and turned to face Helen more completely. Their knees brushed together, and Evelyn’s hand lacked any pretense of shyness when it reached out to rest atop her thigh. She may have left scorch marks in her wake for all Helen could feel.

 

“Are you afraid of me?” Helen asked, feeling the boldness of the question in the way that it sat between them, heavy and potent.

 

Evelyn hummed, leaning toward her just a bit. Helen could feel every breath that she took on her lips.

 

“I’m less afraid of things once I know what makes them tick,” she murmured.

 

Helen felt her eyelids droop as she dropped her gaze down to Evelyn’s parted lips. They looked plush enough to sink into.

 

Her arm stretched to set her glass down on the coffee table so that she didn’t have to risk moving the rest of her body and breaking the spell that had fallen around them. She leaned into Evelyn, slowly, excruciatingly slow, until the other woman lifted her hand and gently wrapped her fingers around the back of Helen’s neck. Her blunt nails scratched soothingly over her scalp, and Helen practically melted into her. 

 

She closed the distance between them, having felt like someone had cut her strings loose as she had floated listlessly through the air before, but as soon as their lips touched she felt as if every molecule in her body had brought itself back together at once.

 

She released a satisfied moan into Evelyn’s mouth, feeling the other woman’s hand slip up her thigh until it gripped the space where her shirt had ridden up on her stomach posessively. Her hands, once freezing, now felt unbelievably warm against her flushed skin.

 

Evelyn tasted like the wine they had been drinking, but also like something uniquely  _ her _ , and somehow Helen was even more drunk off of her tongue than the alcohol.

 

Evelyn’s teeth dragged against Helen’s bottom lip, tugging it outward, and Helen chased her mouth hungrily until she was leaning over her tightly wound body. Helen pressed her palm against Evelyn’s tensed stomach and gently pushed her until she lay with her back on the couch, one leg hanging off the side and the other pressed against the back cushion to make room for Helen between them.

 

Helen pulled away, feeling an ache in her lungs from her erratic breathing, and felt something coil tightly in her stomach at the sight of Evelyn panting and red-faced beneath her.

 

Evelyn raised her hands up to slip her fingers beneath the hem of Helen’s t-shirt, splaying them widely over the toned plane of her stomach. Without breaking eye contact, she raised them a bit higher, palming her breasts over her bra and squeezing the flesh through the material.

 

Helen’s breath hitched, and she made quick work of unbuttoning Evelyn’s jeans and tugging them downward with the help of the other woman lifting her legs up before letting them fall haphazardly back where they had been before.

 

Revealing seamless maroon underwear beneath that contrasted strikingly against her light skin, Helen let the pants fall from her fingers and onto the floor carelessly while she drank in the vision before her.

 

Evelyn had already removed her cardigan when they first entered her home, leaving her in only a black camisole that left little to the imagination now that it was the only thing between Helen and a whole other expanse of skin.

 

Before she could slide that over her head to be cast aside as her pants were, Evelyn leaned up and reversed their positions, pushing Helen’s back against the couch instead. Evelyn’s legs were already on either side of her body, so Helen’s hips were trapped between her thighs as she pressed damp kisses to her neck. Helen allowed the back of her head to dip into the cushion as Evelyn lavished her with attention, arching her back sharply as Evelyn suckled slow kisses down her stomach after tugging her shirt up around her chest. 

 

A coherent thought couldn’t have made its way through Helen’s brain if she wanted it to, less foggy with the wine and more so scrambled by how intoxicating it felt to have Evelyn explore her body so entirely. She laid back and allowed Evelyn’s lips to linger at the hem of her waistline for only so long until she bucked her hips upward in a silent plea for her to stop  _ teasing _ .

 

With a low chuckle, Evelyn murmured, “Don’t rush me,” against her skin before unbuttoning her slacks and ridding Helen of them slowly. She pressed her lips to every inch of skin revealed as she went before her pants joined Evelyn’s on the floor. Helen finally forced her eyes open and looked down between her legs only to see Evelyn’s enticing blue eyes looking up at her, pupils nearly taking up her irises. After she slipped Helen’s damp underwear to the side, she made contact with the skin there that ripped a moan from Helen’s chest with coaxing fingers.

 

Helen hadn’t found herself taking many sexual partners throughout her life, but the rest of the afternoon that she spent both below and above Evelyn made her seriously consider what had been missing with everyone she had taken to bed in the past. She thought about the metaphor that she had initially conjured of two planets hurtling toward each other through space, and by her third orgasm, which they were miraculously able to achieve at nearly the exact same time, she felt that this was far larger than planets. 

 

This was the universe turning inside of itself, sucking everything that made sense into a black hole and leaving behind something in her chest that just craved  _ more _ . More of what, though? 

 

More of Evelyn’s raspy laughter, her soft yet dominating hands, her brilliant mind? More of the feeling of someone who would innocently cuddle into her after rounds of sex that would make anyone else seek penance after even hearing about it? More of who she was as a person, not just as someone who warmed her bed?

 

She wasn’t sure yet.

 

Deep into the evening, the sun having set about an hour ago, Helen lied awake in the other woman’s bed while Evelyn slept soundly atop her chest. Her chestnut hair flopped messily over her eyes as she slumbered, and Helen drew whimsical patterns and shapes on her bare back. She would sometimes encounter raised skin from where she had apparently scratched too deeply in the midst of their earlier activities, and tried not to wince as she thought about how uncomfortable Evelyn would be when she woke.

 

Helen did not come away unscathed herself. A spatter of hickeys lined the inside of her thighs, and she felt her muscles ache with the soreness that generally came from hyperextending herself for too long— she had gotten a bit too enthusiastic once she noticed that her abilities being used in bed had made Evelyn moan rather than turned her off, and put them to good use.

 

She would heal much quicker, though, than Evelyn would. Helen made a mental note to pick something up from the store that would soothe the scratches so that she wouldn’t be wincing every time that they brushed against her clothes or got beneath a hot shower. 

 

The room smelled strongly of the both of their scents mixed together, and there was something heady beneath it all that nodded to exactly what they had been doing for the past few hours. A frown overtook Helen’s face as she contemplated the etiquette for these kinds of things. Would it be better if she snuck out now before Evelyn could wake up and things had the potential to be awkward?

 

But she would only see her in two days anyway because they worked a floor apart from each other in the same building. Helen felt her heartbeat quicken and willed herself to calm down, not wanting to wake Evelyn because she decided to go into a mild panic while wondering what to do after sleeping with a coworker that she was strictly forbidden to do so with.

 

She cursed her weak willed decisions once more and squeezed her eyes shut. The darkness of Evelyn’s bedroom was already engulfing, but shutting her eyes even further allowed her to place more distance between herself and the situation that had laid itself out before her. She would usually talk about this kind of thing with Bob, he had always been her closest confidant even after they broke up their senior year of college, but this was a secret between herself and Evelyn that she alone was not allowed to share. She was positive that Bob was trustworthy, but she couldn’t risk Evelyn’s job on her own good faith. 

 

She didn’t even want to address the emotional feelings that had been brought to light by their newest development. Having before thought of this as merely untamable lust between two relative strangers, Helen now realized that there was something else still swirling in her stomach that curiously pressed itself more aggressively into her as if it was growing angrier the longer that she failed to acknowledge it. 

 

A frustrated groan left her lips without her permission, and Helen opened her eyes as the body atop hers stirred a bit. Evelyn’s face scrunched up in a frown as her eyes slowly fluttered open. Helen could only see her outline and the whites of her gaze in the darkness of the room, but when those tired eyes were turned onto her, she still felt it in her chest as if everything around them was brilliantly lit.

 

“Mhm… time is it?” Evelyn asked, hardly intelligible through her sleepy mumbling, but Helen could put enough together to understand regardless.

 

“It’s almost nine,” she said quietly, glancing at the alarm clock on the other side of the bed. She felt the need to whisper in the stillness that surrounded them. A police siren wailed in the distance, and her muscles still bunched up automatically from over fifteen years as Elastigirl. Being retired for the time that she had been devoting herself to the university did not wear away at those instincts even minimally. 

 

“What’s wrong?” Evelyn asked, her words a bit clearer than before. Helen slowly relaxed and flattened her hand against the center of her back where she had previously been dragging her fingers around and sighed, wistful with nostalgia. 

 

“It’s nothing. How’d you sleep?”

 

Evelyn stretched along Helen’s body, several pops sounding off from her cracking back as she did so. She melted back down against her with a content sigh warming a spot on Helen’s bare chest.

 

“Better than I have in a while, honestly. Is it the powers that make you so… pillow-y, or is that all you?” Her voice was raspy, still thick with sleep, and Helen found herself chuckling into the otherwise silent room.

 

“Even if it was my powers, it would still be all me,” Helen reminded her, “and I’m not sure. Maybe you’ll have to conduct a study. With your Biology PhD,” she said. Helen couldn’t help but to tease her a bit; she figured that it was only fair after all of the fun that Evelyn had poked at her in the past week.

 

Evelyn’s laugh was merely a low rumble against her skin, and her hair tickled Helen’s collarbone as she shifted a bit, but made no move to extract herself from their embrace.

 

“I think I’ve studied you pretty thoroughly already,” she said, pressing her lips to the underside of Helen’s jaw. Goosebumps rose with fierce intensity up her arms in response to Evelyn’s gentle nips to her flesh. The hand that she held against her spine dug its nails right back into the skin that she had just been regretting the marking of, Evelyn’s kisses igniting an intense phantom of the pleasure that had come from between her legs not too long ago. 

 

She felt Evelyn’s soft body shift against her, and the friction of their bare skin rubbing together was wonderfully intoxicating. So intoxicating, that her previous thoughts lamenting their fraternization floated away like long-forgotten dust motes in her brain. Helen hummed in pleasure, feeling properly indulged beneath Evelyn’s wandering mouth.

 

“Hmm, wait,” she breathed, causing Evelyn to pause and look up at her with a frown creasing between her brows 

 

“I just…” she felt hazy, and took a moment to try and unscramble her thoughts. 

 

“What are our boundaries here? I mean, I feel like I hardly know you, but if that’s how we’re keeping things then I would rather know that now.”

 

Evelyn leaned up over her, propping her elbows up on either side of Helen in the space between her sides and the inside of her arms. “What do you wanna know?”

 

Helen could see more of her face in the darkness now that she was closer, and that same shadow of night that cast itself over the room gave her the courage to delve deeper into Evelyn’s life.

 

“What was your childhood like?”

 

Evelyn scoffed a bit at the question, and Helen watched her eyes roll playfully while an amused smile took over her lips. 

 

“Right to the heart, huh? Fine. My childhood was good, for the most part. My mother and father were getting DevTech off the ground, and didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend with us, but they did what they could. What they couldn’t, our nanny picked up. I spent most of my time with my brother, Win, and we kind of helped raise each other. Then when it was just us, we stayed with our grandmother until I went to college. Winston went to go oversee the company instead, and put himself through business school while he did it,” Evelyn said, swaying her head back side to side to emphasize certain points since her usually restless hands were at a standstill on Helen’s chest.

 

“What do you mean ‘when it was just us’?” Helen asked.

 

“Oh, uh…” Evelyn looked uncomfortable, “our parents actually died when I was seventeen. Casualty in an attack on New Urbem.”

 

Helen suddenly regretted pushing for more information, but felt a nagging curiosity at the back of her mind that wouldn’t go away. She had been living in New Urbem around that time, and couldn’t stifle the burning question of if she had been anywhere around the incident.

 

“I’m so sorry to hear that… do you know what villain it was?”

 

Those blue eyes shifted down and away from her, a bitter laugh on her lips that sounded too loud where they had been whispering for the entire conversation.

 

“They weren’t a casualty of the villain.”

 

Ice ran down Helen’s veins at her answer, and she felt a vice seize her chest as she struggled to figure out what to say that felt adequate enough in this moment.

 

“That’s always a tragic thing to happen,” she began slowly, “The last thing that any Super ever wants is to accidentally harm the very people we swore to protect.”

 

Evelyn turned lidded eyes onto her, one eyebrow raised in an unimpressed look, “I didn’t tell you that so you could justify the unrealistic expectation placed on humans with advanced abilities to play God in a shiny outfit when they see fit.” 

 

Helen was taken aback by her words, and she felt her eyes widen at the coldness that had seeped into Evelyn’s voice as she continued to speak.

 

“I told you because you asked, and because I like you enough to be honest. I’ve made my peace with it. I’m not looking to point fingers at Supers. I just think that we, as a society, should be at least a bit more careful how much free reign we’re giving people no more human than we are with weapons ingrained in them at birth. If I wouldn’t trust some stranger off the street with a mediocre IQ and two left feet to save a burning hospital, why should that change just because he can move shit with his mind and put a mask on his face?” Evelyn seemed to realize that she was getting worked up, and her tensed stomach pressed up against Helen’s deflated until she was once again a slack pile of muscle and bones draped over Helen’s body.

 

“Sorry,” Evelyn said eventually. Helen was still reeling from the abrupt turn in conversation.

 

“No, don’t be, I… I understand where you’re coming from,” Helen said, and she did. 

 

She could understand Evelyn’s argument because it had been made by politicians again and again as the Vigilante Act that would have banned Supers from heroing was being debated for years about getting passed. It was ultimately scrapped, but the live debates and heated arguments that it sparked across the globe had ensured that Helen firmly empathized with both sides for different reasons. 

 

She saw the statistics charting the casualties and property damage caused by Supers. She also knew that villainy tended to rise in areas with a higher concentration of Supers because adversaries were formed, and it became a perpetual game of cat and mouse that practically decimated these cities on a bi-weekly basis.

 

But she had also seen the lives saved. She had been the one saving those lives once upon a time, and nothing had been more fulfilling and pure in her life than ensuring that people were able to return home to their families when some tragedy almost made it so that they would never see the next day.

 

“You can ask me something instead, if you want to change the topic,” Helen offered.

Evelyn hummed in consideration and allowed her body to fall back on top of Helen’s fully. She propped her chin up on the bony section between Helen’s breasts and stared up at her, eyes squinted as she thought of what she would ask.

 

“You’re still young, successful as both Elastigirl and  _ Professor _ Truax, beautiful, capable—”

 

“This is sounding less like a question and more like outright flattery,” Helen laughed.

 

“I’m getting to it,” Evelyn said, mirth on her smiling lips as well, “Why has nobody been able to put a ring on your finger?”

 

Helen felt butterflies tear through her stomach at the question, and the reason why escaped her somewhere in the depths of the comotion their fluttering wings caused. She could tell that her face was warm, and was suddenly grateful to the darkness of the room for hiding her surely pink tinted cheeks.

 

“Would you believe me if I told you that most people never make me look twice,” she answered more breathlessly than she would have preferred.

 

“I would, but I have to warn you it would only stroke my already inflated ego.” Evelyn leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Helen’s chin, and she was briefly overwhelmed by the intimacy of it all.

 

“Well, try to reign it in for once. I don’t know what it is about you…” Helen trailed off, staring down at the woman on top of her with a quiet wonderment that erased whatever it was she was going to say next and replaced it with the fuzzy static of a radio with no signal.

 

She watched as Evelyn glowed even in the dark at the praise, a smug smile tugging at her full lips until it softened her entire face, and that curious thing that had been pestering Helen since they met got just the tiniest bit less angry with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The support this fic is already getting in the first couple of chapters makes me thrilled to see what I have in store for this story. Much love to each of you. Come scream about these two on tumblr with me (bakedgarnet.tumblr.com)


	4. SUPERS ONLY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An awful declaration of division is made on campus, and drives a wedge between Helen and Evelyn that neither know how to fix.

Three and a half weeks following Helen and Evelyn’s illicit tryst, followed by countless others under the alternating roofs of Evelyn’s condo or Helen’s loft, something far worse than the secret nature of their relationship came to light on campus.

 

Literally.

 

The singed grass that surrounded the Dynaguy statue in the center of the quad spelled out two words that rolled disgust through Helen’s bones until she was furious with it, hands clenched into fists as she tucked her arms across her chest.

 

_SUPERS ONLY_

 

The objective part of her brain understood that it was a prank, that it was most likely some dare that had gone too far, but the devastated reaction of the newly integrated, non-powered students that surrounded her—

 

She hadn’t felt such visceral anger in quite a while.

 

Rick Dicker stepped in front of the gathered crowd and addressed everyone loudly, the slow and deep nature of his voice acting as a balm against the rage bubbling beneath Helen’s skin. She searched for Evelyn in the crowd and finally caught her gaze to her far left. The scowl that marred her face, turning it into a terrifying expression of bitterness told Helen everything that she needed to know about her thoughts.

 

“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Rick asked, only needing to repeat himself once until the volume died down and everyone focused their attention onto him.

 

“What has happened on this campus today is a reprehensible offense that the University does not stand by in any way, shape, or form. The individual or individuals who are responsible for this vile, prejudiced defacement of school property and hate speech are being searched for with every resource this institution has to offer. If you turn yourself in, we can consider an alternative punishment than expulsion, but one that will be equally fitting.”

 

“I would like to apologize to everyone on campus on behalf of the disgusting person, or people, who burned this into the ground,” Rick finished solemnly, holding his large hands behind his back and dipping his head in a partial bow before turning on his heel and walking off toward the Dean’s building.

 

The crowd began to disperse, casting lingering gazes of fascinated disgust at the two words burned into the grass. Helen knew that they were obviously searching for a pyrokinetic, but that happened to be one of the most common powers across the board.

 

She felt a large hand grip her shoulder before she could escape into the main building, and the hulking shadow that blocked out the sunlight let her know that it was Bob before he even said anything.

 

“Hey, how are you doing? I know everyone’s a little shaken up,” he said lowly, falling into step beside her. His spiced cologne wafted into her nostrils, as familiar as it was strong.

 

“ _I’m_ fine. I’m not the one who was targeted by public prejudice and ignorance,” Helen said bitterly. She pressed the button to the staff-only elevator and tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for the car to come down to their level.

 

“I’m going to start looking into who was behind this on my own after my last class finishes,” he whispered to her, even after they were alone on the elevator together.

 

Helen found her own voice lowering automatically to match his. The thought of actually doing something rather than waiting for the administration to handle it on their own enticed her like nothing else could when it came to seeking justice for that awful message.

 

“I know you’ve always liked to work alone, but… if you want an extra brain or set of eyes, you know where to find me.”

 

The elevator stopped at Bob’s floor, overrun with several different workout rooms and a protein bar run by student staff. Several young adults passed their elevator door wearing workout clothes that clung to their bodies with sweat.

 

“I appreciate the offer, Helen, but I think I got this one. If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know,” he said, flashing her the same boyish grin he’d had since she met him.

 

Helen waved her fingers a bit in parting as the doors closed between them, and she found herself in deep thought as she made her way back to her empty classroom.

 

She was shuffling and rearranging papers needlessly as she waited. It was nearing one o’clock, and she and Evelyn generally got lunch together. Whether they ordered food to the campus and picked one of their classrooms to eat in, or went off of campus for something especially good during a stressful day, they always at least saw each other at the same time.

 

Today, though, Evelyn was nowhere to be seen. Helen worriedly chewed at her bottom lip as she wondered if what happened on the quad had anything to do with her sudden disappearance. Helen was checking the grades of her students online just for something to do until one thirty rolled around, and then she finally reached for her phone to shoot Evelyn a text.

 

Before she could press send, the doors to her classroom at the top of the stairway and staggered rows of desks opened loudly. Evelyn stood there for a long moment, her expression hidden by the shadow that the overhead lights cast over her eyes.

 

“Hey! I was getting worried you weren’t going to show up,” Helen said, gathering her things up to slip into her backpack as she usually did. Her motions slowed, though, when she noticed that Evelyn had not moved. The silence that she received from the other woman twisted in her stomach uncomfortably.

 

“Evelyn?”

 

“Are you really thinking about lunch right now? There was an act of _terrorism_ on this campus!” Her voice was sharp and harshly lashed out in the massive room, venom dripping from every syllable. She took another step forward so that the shadow across her face disappeared, and Helen could see nothing but rage in the set line of her mouth and her pinched brows.

 

“What? What happened on the quad was horrible, of course, but I wouldn’t call it terrorism,” Helen tried to placate her, slowly lowering her backpack onto the ground from where she had initially begun to put it on. It didn’t seem like they were going anywhere anytime soon.

 

“ _Oh_ ?” Evelyn’s tone was scathing with sarcasm, “What do you call one of my students who showed up in my office two hours ago with deep partial thickness burns across his face, Helen? An _accident_?”

 

Helen felt something thick and stifling crawl up her throat, and her face scrunched into a disturbed grimace. “Deep partial thickness burns?”

 

“Second degree burns! His skin will probably never recover from the discoloration, and if the way that he was sobbing while I contacted his parents and got someone to take him to the hospital was any indication, he might not recover from the trauma either!” She was fuming, fists balled at her sides, and Helen was taken aback by the white hot fire in her usually calm gaze.

 

“I—“ she grasped at straws for something that felt adequate enough to say in response, clutching her upper arms uselessly, “When did this happen?” The suddenness of the news made it take too long to register in her mind, but it was surely sinking in the longer that they spoke.

 

“Right after the fucking crowd dispersed from the quad!” Evelyn shouted, her face steadily reddening, “These are the Supers you want to put masks and capes on after they get their diplomas? You want to send them off to protect who, exactly? Their God complexes? Because that’s the only knowledge of theirs getting fed at this _bullshit_ institution.”

 

“ _Hey_ , wait a second, don’t point the finger at me or this university!” Helen said defensively, feeling a deep offense at having the place she had put her blood and tears into torn apart so mercilessly. “I’m sure Dicker and the rest of the presidents are doing everything they can to figure out who did it and take the right courses of action.”

 

“And then what? Someone else just gets emboldened and follows in that kid’s footsteps? You think Rick Dicker and company are going to take a deep, introspective look at how toxic this place is? Breeding a whole group of Supers to think it’s their born right to be worshiped and fawned over for their powers? Admit that they were wrong to integrate non-Supers into this University without having a proper discussion on the tensions between us that have been rising for the past ten years?” Her rant was punctuated by expressive hand gestures and sweeping arm motions, and Helen felt properly chastised as she considered what Evelyn was saying.

 

She supposed that from an outside standpoint, Urbem Heights University had been cultivated as a way to separate Supers from the rest of the world, training them to be overseers in a sense. Helen was not blind enough to miss the rise in animosity between Supers and non-Supers on the news over the years, since before the Vigilante Act had even come into conversation.

 

With the law banning Supers never having passed, some Super-supremacists, the first of which had been named Handsome Jack… or Gamma Jack, which Helen remembered that he had changed his moniker to, had taken it upon themselves to selectively choose who they saved. Some had gone as far as to inflict more damage on the surrounding area than necessary in order to show off their strengths even when they weren’t needed. Casualties soared exponentially as a result, and nothing had really been done about it because the politicians in office were either afraid of or indebted to the Super community.

 

Helen had considered the supremacists to be outliers before— lone wolves, as the news reporters habitually called them— motivated by their own individual hangups.

 

But hearing Evelyn so impassionedly call out the unspoken implications of even just an entire university dedicated to Supers made her take a step back for a moment and see the full picture. She was horrified by what she witnessed when she did.

 

At her long silence, Evelyn shook her head in disgust, turning on her heel in a move to storm back out of her classroom. Helen felt her limbs unlock from where she had gone frozen and took a step from around her desk after her.

 

“Where are you going?” She called out, hearing the unsteadiness in her own voice.

 

“To hand in my resignation letter,” Evelyn growled without turning around to look at her, and Helen finally found the strength in her voice to say, “Wait!”

 

“What?” Evelyn whirled back around, brows drawn down over her blue eyed gaze angrily.

 

“I’ll help you go around the administration to figure this out… to make things right. Just— don’t quit. Please,” Helen pleaded. She was unsure of where the panic curling in her chest had come from. The thought of Evelyn stepping out of her life made her hands clammy and her throat constrict.

 

The thought of being complicit and sitting around waiting for Rick Dicker to do things by the book, or for Bob to play detective on his own made her even _more_ uneasy, so she stared up at Evelyn standing at the top of the shallowly rising staircase and begged her to stay through nothing else but her eyes.

 

The silence between them was deafening for a long moment, and then Evelyn sighed. Some of the tension fell from her shoulders, and her fists unclenched finally, though the crease between her eyebrows remained.

 

“Fine.” 

* * *

That night found them in each other’s arms again, this time in Helen’s bedroom. Her house was smaller compared to Evelyn’s, but still relatively spacious in comparison to the average home. Her years of hero work had sometimes paid pretty nicely if she happened to save someone with deep pockets and a burning desire to donate some money her way. Her years working at the university had been paying her handsomely as well, and gaining tenure the year before had only increased that amount.

 

She wasn’t nearly as flashy as Evelyn was when it came to her living space, though, and so while she had money for sure, the last place it would have shown itself was in the decoration of her relatively modest home.

 

Evelyn was warm beside her, and absently traced her finger up and down a fresh hickey she had left atop one of Helen’s breasts.

 

“About earlier…” Helen started in a whisper, having been deeply bothered by the implications of what Evelyn had said to her that morning throughout the entire day.

 

“Please don’t,” Evelyn groaned, closing her eyes and withdrawing her hand, “I don’t wanna think about that right now.”

 

Helen swallowed heavily and extended her hand out to recapture the one of Evelyn’s that had moved away from her. She entangled their fingers together and held her hand between their naked bodies. She noted that Evelyn didn’t return the pressure she had used to squeeze her hand comfortingly.

 

“Are you sure? I know you were really upset, and I just want to make sure that I didn’t… invalidate that in some way by me not understanding at fir—“

 

“Helen Truax,” Evelyn sighed, squeezing her closed eyes shut even tighter, “shut up before I find my clothes from wherever they went around this house and go home.”

 

Helen’s lips pursed between her teeth as she hastily shut her mouth. She wanted to address what had caused so much friction between them that the sex they’d had earlier would have seriously injured her if it weren’t for her abilities.

 

“I’m sorry,” was all she said. Whether Evelyn took that as an apology for prodding at a sensitive topic in her classroom earlier, or for pressing too far just moments ago, Helen wasn’t sure.

 

Those clear blue eyes opened again and merely stared at her, unreadable and just as hooded as they always were. Helen felt something inside of her ache deep and hollow the longer that she stared. It was as if that curious thing that perpetually rested in her stomach around Evelyn was trying to bridge some gap between them that neither were ready to build.

 

Instead of responding, Evelyn unwrapped their hands and instead used her fingers to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Helen’s ear.

 

“Got any whiskey?” She asked.

 

Helen’s brows quirked upward a bit, taken off guard by the question.

 

“I’m sure there’s a bottle in the cabinet that I never opened. Bob told one of the administrators who had a little thing for me to get it as my secret Santa present because he knows I hate whiskey and wanted to mess with him.”

 

Evelyn’s light chuckle breezed her warm breath across her face, and Helen pulled the duvet fully off of both of them so that she could get to her feet.

 

An agitated groan left Evelyn’s lips when she pulled away, and Helen turned her eyes down onto her lover with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Do you want the whiskey or not?”

 

Evelyn huffed, rolling her eyes before getting to her feet herself. She stretched her arms up over her head, and Helen raked her gaze up her lithe body as her joints popped one by one. The slight bumps of her spine, the dimples that punctuated two spots right above her butt that Helen had taken extra time to press gentle kisses to in the past, the series of light pink marks of raised skin that Helen had brought on by scratching too deeply into her back.

 

It happened every time. They joked about it now.

 

“You can stare at me, or you can go get the alcohol.”

 

Helen shot a look at her that didn’t carry enough heat behind it to be called a glare as she pulled her robe off of the back of her door and slipped her hands through the fluffy arms. Evelyn had begun leaving one of her own at Helen’s house lately, and the first time that she brought it, neither of them mentioned it. They still hadn’t.

 

Helen walked barefoot through her house until she made it to the quaint kitchen, reaching into one of the overhead cabinets and stretching her arm to pull the bottle from the top shelf. She stretched her other arm across the kitchen to pluck a single glass from the drying rack and set it down on the counter, cracking the bottle open and pouring two fingers into it. Evelyn came up behind her, startling Helen a bit when she spoke.

 

“Thanks,” she said, taking the bottle from Helen’s fingers and pressing her lips to the opening of it, taking a heavy swallow before scrunching her face up and setting it down on the island counter behind them.

 

The shock that rocked through Helen froze her in place for a bit, her lips parting with a question that she didn’t have the words for yet. After a brief moment, she shook her head out of the stupor it had gone into and said, “Are you okay?”

 

“Sure, why?” Evelyn moved to sit down at the barstool behind the bottle, and slumped her body down until her elbows were propped on the marble and her chin was cradled in the crook of one of them.

 

“I don’t know, maybe because I poured you a reasonable amount of that in this glass, and you went straight for the whole bottle?” Helen emphasized her point by raising the glass up in the air between them.

 

“I thought that was yours,” Evelyn shrugged.

 

“I just told you that I hate whiskey.”

 

Evelyn’s shoulders somehow deflated even more as she picked the bottle back up by its neck and tilted it at her in a mock salute before taking another long swig.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“If this is about what happened on the quad today, _we can talk about it_ ,” Helen said, hearing the pleading tone in her voice. She hated the way that Evelyn was clamming up after so many days of finally getting to see her relaxed and unguarded. Helen had never seen her so angry before as when she was yelling at the top of the stairs in her classroom, red-faced and cursing the university’s name.

 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Evelyn said sharply. Helen pushed on anyway, setting the glass down behind her on the counter and taking several steps over to the island to rest her hands on the edge of it and look down at Evelyn’s crumpled form from up close.

 

“Why not?” She asked. She didn’t want to beg her for withheld information, but damn it, Evelyn scared her as she brought the bottle to her lips once more and gulped down another mouthful. A startling amount of the whiskey had disappeared from the bottle when she set it back down.

 

“I don’t want to talk about it with _you_!” Evelyn snapped suddenly. Helen flinched backward.

 

“You want to understand, but you’ll _never_ be able to know how it feels to be the smartest woman in the room and still get condescended to because everyone around you is a _Super_ . Do you even realize how fucking infantilizing it feels to be the head of the technology department and have some _asshole_ professor with the power to manipulate electricity try to _incorrectly_ tell you how a magnetoresistive nanosensor works?”

 

Helen stood with her lips parted in surprise, eyebrows pinched together in sympathy as she watched the woman that she had grown so physically close to fall apart emotionally before her eyes.

“I don’t…” _know what to say_ . _Know how that feels_ . _Know what that means_.

 

All three of those options took turns on the tip of her tongue before she ultimately just said, “I don’t know how to make this better.”

 

Evelyn scoffed, burrowing her chin down further into the crook of her elbow until her mouth was nestled in it as well, partially muffling her words.

 

“Forget it. That’s all you all want to do. Fix, fix, fix everyone else. Save _everyone else_. Who’s gonna save you?” Evelyn asked, and the ominous nature of the question made Helen uncomfortable. She looked away from those unusually sharp blue eyes, so used to them always being half in a daze. Now they were pointed enough to impale her.

 

“Who’s gonna save all of you before you destroy this planet in your grandiose valor? In your _arrogance_?” Helen could barely hear her from behind the cloth of her robe-covered arm, but she figured it out. She knew that Evelyn wasn’t just talking about having her work wrongly explained to her by a cyberkinetic, or even the words burned into the grass of the quad that morning.

 

She was talking about, on a global scale, the culture of Supers and its toxicity to mankind. Helen had never looked at what she was in that light before, but now it shone too brightly under Evelyn’s words for her not to see it, and the visual made her nauseous.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! We're finally taking a step into the thick of things, and I can't wait until it all unfolds. Thanks for reading much love!
> 
> Updates will continue to be every Tuesday and Friday, but if I get far enough into this fic, I may drop some Sunday Surprises on y'all too :)


	5. Stability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen and Evelyn do some digging into the school's administration and later turn an emotional corner.

“Dicker is legally required to keep all incident reports on file,” Helen whispered as she thumbed through the file cabinet Evelyn had broken into with a bobby pin and a sharp-tipped nail file from her purse like some sort of cartoon villain.

 

It was Saturday morning, and they were both running their own side mission to do some further investigation into some of what they discovered to be many instances of cover-ups and missing details in the reports they had dug up the day before.

 

Helen found a file that was marked with a red post-it note and lifted it out of the cabinet between two fingers. Spreading the contents of it carefully over Rick Dicker’s desk, she gasped and drew Evelyn’s attention from the other side of the room.

 

“What’d you find?” She asked.

 

“Some junior named Riley Sutton, alias called Blazestone,” Helen said, wracking her brain for why on earth that first and last name sounded vaguely familiar and coming up frustratingly empty.

 

“It says… she was questioned about the arson of a nearby non-Super owned residence. The suspicious circumstances and gathered evidence by the police department pointed back to her,” she summarized, “but the case was thrown out because the evidence was mishandled.”

 

Evelyn stopped looking through the other cabinets and walked up behind her. Helen could feel the warmth of her body heat against her back, and shifted slightly to make more room for her to see.

 

“What does that have to do with our guy?” Evelyn asked right beside Helen’s ear. She blinked several times to refocus her gaze on the papers spread below her.

 

“Well, because I think it’s actually our  _ girl _ . There’s a receipt in here for  _ Dicker _ from a check made out to him by Dan and Rachel Sutton for—“ Helen gaped at the amount, “ten thousand dollars.”

 

Evelyn’s hand gripped the paper slightly above where she did so herself as she tilted it so that she could get a better look. Helen heard her breath catch as she got an eyeful of the numbers as well.

 

“This is too convenient. What kind of idiot would leave this incrimination in state sanctioned incident reports?” Evelyn asked. Helen shrugged her shoulders upward as she scrunched her face up in deep thought, running her eyes back and forth through the documents inside of the file until something jumped out at her.

 

“Well, the only reasons that would make sense would be if these reports weren’t ever filed with the state… or if the state is aware of the bribery, and overlooks it. Which would mean that Dicker either has something on them, or they’re supporting the hate crimes, too.” She couldn't understand why. There weren’t any Supers in office in that entire state, so why would non-powered politicians back the harassment of their own people? It couldn’t be to paint Supers in a bad light, otherwise why help cover it up?

 

Helen couldn’t help but feel betrayal in her heart when she thought about Rick Dicker, for all that he had done for her in the past, accepting money from hefy wallet-carrying parents in order to look past hate crimes.

 

“I can’t believe he would jeopardize this school… and what happened to all those things he said on the quad about us not standing for this, about crimes like this being reprehensible?” She asked quietly, more to herself than to Evelyn. A gentle hand was placed on the small of Helen’s back, and Evelyn’s thumb brushed up and down over her shirt in a rare, intimate display of comfort.

 

“I think the sooner you learn never to trust a business man, the sooner you’ll be less shocked by the things they’ll do for power,” her voice was a tired sigh, as if she had seen this sort of thing hundreds of times before.

 

“Your brother is the head of DevTech. He’s one of those men,” Helen countered.

 

Evelyn’s scoff was a puff of air against her cheek, “Who do you think taught me that lesson? We’ve had enough leeches in suits and ties try to usurp our company right from under us, all the while smiling at us over cocktails and expensive steak dinners. Rick Dicker is not the first of his kind.”

 

Helen wanted to argue, she wanted to be able to vouch for what she had always been under the impression was good character, but her words would fall flat now. Instead, she caught a glimpse at the file Evelyn held between her arm and her chest.

 

“What’s in there?” Helen asked.

 

Evelyn pulled it out and flattened it open on the desk, spreading the contents of it with a reminded, “Oh!”

 

“I found an incident report of a kid under the name Universal Man. It stood out because there’s no alias tied to him— that’s it. He doesn’t have a secret identity,” Evelyn said, her brows furrowing in concentration over her light eyes. Helen watched her as she spread papers out over the other side of Dicker’s otherwise relatively bare desk.

 

“Then I saw that the report was written for a flag that got put by his name to have him on watch. Apparently, he wrote an essay in one of his classes about how Supers are descendants from Gods, and then whole bunch of Darwinistic bullshit,” Evelyn rolled her eyes, “The call for his watch started when he was a sophomore and lasted until the beginning of his senior year. Which is now,” she explained, pointing to various points in the reports for reference as she spoke. Helen tended to get distracted by all of her hand movements, so she watched Evelyn’s pinched face as she talked instead.

 

“Do you think they’re working together?” Helen asked.

 

Evelyn’s lips parted and her eyes squinted, looking hesitant to make any definitive claims so soon.

 

“I… think that Blazestone is for sure our prime suspect, but whether or not she’s working with Universal Man is still up in the air. This could just be a coincidence— but it’s not unlikely that with that rhetoric of his he’ll be stirred up eventually by all of this turbulence on campus regardless.”

 

Helen nodded, pulling out her cellphone and swiping the screen over to the camera. She held the lens over several of the sheets from both of their files and snapped quick photos before shuffling everything back into the order that she found it and closing them both. She handed the one that Evelyn picked up back to her, and then turned to put Blazestone’s back into the cabinet drawer.

 

“We should leave soon. I know he doesn’t come in on Saturday’s but the last thing we need is someone walking past and seeing us in his office,” Evelyn sounded on edge, and Helen understood why. The feeling at the back of her mind of always being on the verge of getting caught, whether it be getting caught sneaking through the dean’s office or having an illicit relationship with her coworker, continued to prod at her now.

* * *

The next day, Helen woke up in Evelyn’s bed.

 

This, by itself, was not out of the ordinary. In fact, neither of them had slept alone for more than two nights in a row since their strange relationship began. The end of every day just seemed to always lead to them falling into each other’s arms.

 

The fact that they hadn’t had sex the night before— or that morning, now that she thought about it—  _ was _ out of the ordinary. Very much so.

 

She had woken up with Evelyn’s back curved into the front of her torso, her arms around the smaller woman who tended to sleep curled in a tiny ball if she didn’t fall asleep stretched out on top of Helen’s Body.

 

This was the first time that they had gone to bed for the night still in all of their sleep clothes, and Helen’s heart pounded alarmingly hard in her chest at the thought of it. So hard, in fact, that it was a miracle Evelyn didn’t notice and wake up.

 

Her hands felt clammy where they rested against Evelyn’s soft stomach, having found their way under her shirt in their slumber somehow. She attempted to withdraw them, and the little displeased noise that left Evelyn’s sleeping lips suddenly made her loathe to do it.

 

She kept her hands where they were, clammy or not.

 

The back of Evelyn’s head smelled like what was left over from her perfume the day before, and Helen found herself taking a deep breath where her nose was pressed against her chestnut colored tresses. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she felt so content in that moment that her heartbeat finally began to relax, and before long, she was dozing off once more.

 

When she woke up the second time, it was to an empty bed. The space beside her was still warm, so she knew that Evelyn couldn’t have gone far. Helen was willing to bet she just went to the bathroom, and turned over on her back to stretch her limbs out. Her legs and arms extended until they spilled over the bed and drooped onto the floor before she pulled them back into her body and resumed her regular shape.

 

The smell of something sweet made her mouth water, and she slowly sat up in Evelyn’s absurdly comfortable bed. Her fingers rose to rub sleep from her eyes as she kicked the covers away and stood up from the mattress. Pensively biting the inside of her cheek as she considered what this new development was going to mean for them— perhaps a stern conversation from Evelyn about how lines being blurred in this way are never allowed to happen again— Helen took her time making the bed. She spent an extra two minutes attempting to smooth every wrinkle before huffing out a deep breath and making her way to the bathroom connected to Evelyn’s bedroom. The door was closed, but when she knocked twice and pushed it open, the lights were off and the room was empty. She frowned a bit and turned flicked the lightswitch upward before stepping inside herself. 

 

She looked down at the sink and stared at the far too elaborate electric toothbrush Evelyn had gotten her a week and a half into their time together. Her fingers gripped the edge of the rectangular, black marble basin tightly. She had gotten Evelyn a less flashy one around that time as well; it sat in the toothbrush holder at her own sink at home.

 

She thought about the four holes at the top of it, built for four toothbrushes, and a fleeting thought about those last two filled with children’s toothbrushes— smaller, with little cartoon characters on the front— slipped into her head without her permission. 

 

Her eyebrows drew together over her nose, and she ripped her gaze away from the holder in Evelyn’s bathroom with a disapproving shake of her head. She couldn’t think like that, especially not involving Evelyn. 

 

Evelyn was impermanent, subject to fade from her life as quickly as anyone else had. Helen knew that she should be craving stability, which was the key reason why she had been single for the majority of her life. She was prone to falling into people who were as fleeting as she was before she learned to tone that part of herself down. She was thirty five years old, and still having to talk herself out of throwing away a secure future with someone interested in being a solid fixture in her life for people who gave her the short thrills that she had always thrived on.

 

People like Evelyn.

 

Helen dropped her head down until it hung in front of the mirror. 

 

“Damn it, Helen,” she whispered to herself.

 

Shaking the thoughts off, she ran cold water in the sink and splashed her face with it, feeling comfort in the sharp clarity that the iciness brought to the swarm of things buzzing around in her head. She then brushed her teeth, using Evelyn’s whitening toothpaste and rinsing her mouth out next.

 

Drying her hands and mouth off on Evelyn’s hand towels, Helen stepped back into the bedroom at the same time that Evelyn was entering from the other door.

 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Evelyn’s eyebrows shot up before a strange look, maybe one of nervousness, crossed her face, “I was coming to get you up for breakfast.”

 

Helen realized that’s what the earlier pleasant smell had been, and felt her own face soften as she took a step toward her.

 

“You didn’t have to do that, Evelyn.”

 

The other woman shrugged, avoiding Helen’s eyes and waving the spatula in her hand as if none of it was a big deal. As if her standing in the doorway in her silk robe, hair sticking every which direction, and spatula gripped by her fingers didn’t make Helen want to go back on every single thought she’d had about not pursuing her seriously moments ago.

 

“I wanted to, um,” Evelyn cleared her throat, “I wanted to apologize for Thursday night.”

 

That had been the night of Evelyn’s disturbing rant and drinking of whiskey right from the bottle. Helen walked forward until she was right in front of her, looking down into guarded blue eyes and feeling something heavy sitting in her chest.

 

“You shouldn’t have to apologize. You had every reason to be upset— to be  _ angry _ . I might not ever be able to know how it feels to not be a Super, but I will try harder to learn as much as I can. Even when it’s uncomfortable.”

 

The air around them felt too intimate, too much more than the unspoken agreement of ‘no strings attached’, and Helen tentatively reached a hand out to rest on Evelyn’s hip. She heard her own heartbeat in her ears as she did.

 

Those perpetually wandering blue eyes zoned in on her hand, though, and the short moment waiting to see what Evelyn would do next was somehow even more terrifying than she thought it would be.

 

She watched as Evelyn’s sharp jaw clenched, flexing on either side of her head, and then she slowly dragged her eyes up from Helen’s hand to linger on her lips, then stop at her eyes.

 

“Helen…” she sighed in exasperation, closing her eyes suddenly while her expression took on one of pained restraint and a gust of minty air washed across Helen’s face.

 

Helen ignored everything in her brain telling her to leave well enough alone, to stop always  _ pushing _ , and rose her other hand to cup Evelyn’s cheek. She felt her own breaths getting shallower as she did.

 

Evelyn’s eyes snapped back open, and the look in them was one of barely contained fear. Her jaw was clenching rapidly, as if she were grinding her teeth, and her throat bobbed once with a swallow.

 

But when Helen descended upon her lips, Evelyn didn’t pull away. She didn’t kiss her back either, at first.

 

Helen’s lips moved against hers shyly, hesitant like a very first kiss would be. They had both done unrepeatable things to each other’s bodies, had choked, bruised and given each other pleasure the other hadn’t ever experienced before. That part was safe. That part had boundaries.

 

This, the way that Evelyn slowly began to kiss her back, the way that her little noises of enjoyment vibrated into Helen’s mouth despite her obvious attempts to hold them at bay, the way that Helen kissed her tenderly and softly— this was dangerous.

 

Evelyn didn’t touch her back.

 

For some reason, it was more intimate than if she had.

 

So used to her roaming hands and possessive fingers, the absence of them meant something different, something that Helen didn’t know what to call because it was so far away from their boundaries that she was free falling all over again. Except, instead of them both diving into engulfing waters together, she pulled Evelyn up before they were submerged. They both survived in this scenario.

 

This was not two planets hurtling toward each other, or a black hole devouring the world around them. This was the warmth of the sun on a summer day, gently shining down on a freshly mowed lawn with two pairs of little feet running across it.

 

This was stability instead of chaos.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for the endless support. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and get ready for some increase in drama coming up! Much love!


	6. Just A Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen seeks advice from Bob and Mirage, and Evelyn makes a decision.

“Oh, man,” Bob laughed. His large shoulders jumped up and down alongside his chest as he did so, and Helen looked at him with what she could tell was a pout forming on her face.

 

“You’ve got it _bad_ ,” he continued to chuckle. Helen had half a mind to stretch across the table and hit him, except Mirage stepped into their dining room with their dessert for the evening, an apple pie that still steamed and wafted a heavenly scent throughout the entire house.

 

She set it down at the center of all three of them, and both Helen and Bob immediately made room on their plates, once filled with dinner, to collect a slice for themselves. Mirage finally sat down at the head of the table and cut herself a piece, saying, “I missed who you’ve got it bad for, Helen,” she smiled teasingly, “Do you mind catching me up?”

 

Helen huffed with exasperation, and opened her mouth to answer when Bob beat her to it.

 

“She’s been sleeping with our new head of the technology department, and now she has _feelings_ ,” Bob wiggled his eyebrows at her, hefting out another loud laugh.

 

“Damn it, Bob! This is why I didn’t want to tell you!” Her face was on fire.

 

“No, you didn’t wanna tell me because you could both get fired for fraternization and wanted to be a _good_ friend with benefits and keep your mouth shut,” Bob said, pointing his fork, covered in apple pie guts, at her as he chewed on a piece.

 

“But, then again you’re being a bad friend with benefits by steering into _feelings_ in the first place, so I guess it’s all fair game now, huh?”

 

Helen’s glare at him surely should have turned him to stone. She had nearly allowed herself to forget Bob’s inability to be serious when it came to her love life because she hadn’t had anyone new in it in so long.

 

She did not tell him about dream she’d had during a brief nap in between the time of going home from Evelyn’s and stopping by Bob’s for dinner that night. The dream of tiny, pattering footfalls in her home, and of two little faces. One with auburn hair and blue eyes. The other a brunette with eyes as brown as her own. She didn’t dare speak about any of that aloud.

 

“Bobby, please, she’s obviously very distressed about this,” Mirage cut in, placing a supportive hand over Helen’s clenched fist.

 

“ _Thank you_ , Mirage,” Helen said through gritted teeth.

 

Bob held both of his hands out in surrender, his laughter dying down finally.

 

“Fine! Alright, I’ll be serious,” he smiled that familiar boyish grin between the both of them, and Helen finally released her held breath.

 

“So, what are you going to do?” Mirage asked, moving her hand from Helen’s to brush a strand of her long, platinum blonde hair behind her ear and avoid it brushing onto her dessert.

 

She gave Helen her undivided attention, those green eyes wide with genuine concern. Helen had always enjoyed Mirage as a concept, never having spent this much time with her before, but now she was grateful for the other woman’s calming presence alongside Bob’s far too rambunctious energy.

 

“Well, I was just telling Bob about how we sort of started… just sleeping together instead of…” she cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable discussing this with her ex boyfriend’s wife. Her hands gestured vaguely, and Bob took it upon himself to fill in the blank.

 

“Fucking,” he chimed in through a mouth full of apple pie.

 

Helen and Mirage both turned dirty looks onto him, the former’s face heating up significantly, “ _Bob_!” They both shouted.

 

“What? Was that any less accurate than if I had said ‘having sex,’ or perhaps ‘ _coitus’_ ,” he teased. Helen’s face scrunched into one of disgust, and she set her elbow on the table, propping her cheek up with her fist to stare at him in exasperation.

 

“Are you done being twelve?”

 

Bob finished the last bite of his pie, seeming to seriously consider her question before nodding twice, “Well, I don’t know what twelve year olds are running around calling it coitus, but yeah, it’s all out of my system. For now.”

 

“That’s what you said last time,” Helen muttered under her breath. Mirage shot one last scolding look at her husband before softening her gaze and bringing it back to Helen.

 

“Please, continue.”

 

“Right, so we started just sleeping together instead of… _that_ ,” Helen flicked her eyes to Bob, who was trying valiantly to keep the shit-eating grin off of his face, “and she made me breakfast for the first time the next morning.”

 

Helen released a loaded sigh, opening her fisted hand so that she could drop her forehead into her palm, “and then we sang in her kitchen,” Helen muttered so lowly that she got two hums of confusion that prompted her to repeat herself.

 

“Then we sang in her kitchen!” Helen said, much louder this time, with a furious heat licking up her neck and cheeks. Her hand had dropped from her forehead to hit the surface of the table a bit harder than she had meant to, and the visceral feeling of her heart pounding throughout all of her limbs only emphasized that she was overwhelmed with both embarrassment and distress.

 

Bob hid his mouth behind the fist that had previously held his fork, likely having dropped it to avoid crumpling the metal into a ball. Mirage herself had stared at her with parted lips, a look of clear pity written all over her face for just how far things had spun out of control for her.

 

Helen watched Bob’s shoulders quake and his face slowly tinge pink as he tried his very best to stave off his laughter and whatever comments that would probably lead to Helen stretching across the table and looping her body around his neck like a pissed off boa constrictor. He cleared his throat loudly before moving his fist away a bit. Helen was sure he still kept it propped up near his mouth in case he needed it back there quickly.

 

“Sang what, Helen?” His tone was far too forced into sounding normal that it came across as being obviously fake.

 

“Well, she was teasing me because I listen to classical music while I work, and so we started talking about all the other music we listen to… long story short, she learned that I like broadway musicals and so does she, so she played the Chicago soundtrack from her house’s speakers and—”

 

Bob’s loud guffaw broke through her sentence, and she felt her nostrils flare and her eyes narrow at him dangerously. Before she could strangle him like she so badly wanted to, Mirage placed her hand over her clenched fist once more placatingly.

 

“Bobby, can you clear our plates please?” she asked Bob sweetly, batting her eyelashes up at him even though it was as plain as day that she just wanted him out of the room. Wiping a tear from his eye, Bob stood up and stacked their plates on top of each other, still chuckling himself back into another round of, admittedly quieter, laughter as he walked into the other room.

 

Mirage turned to give Helen her full attention, placing her other hand on top of Helen’s now loosened fist as well. She gave her a pursed-lipped smile and tilted her head forward, giving off the appearance of someone genuinely invested in whatever happened next in this moment between them. Helen felt herself calm down slightly at the quiet support.

 

“Okay, before he comes back, in my honest opinion, I think you should sit her down and talk about this before things get… out of hand,” Mirage said gently. “You don’t have room to hurt one another. You work together, right?”

 

Helen nodded, anchoring onto her words paired with the warm hands atop hers in order to keep a grip on her sudden calmness.

 

“So, unfortunately, you don’t get the option of falling into this head-first. You have to have intent behind what the two of you do from now on. You don’t get the privilege of a school yard crush… this kind of situation calls for being the bigger person and laying out rules. Then it’s up to both of you to stick to them,” Mirage said. Her earthy green eyes bored holes into Helen’s, and for the first time, she was able to just _think_ without all of the added, swirling emotion that came attached to Evelyn’s name.

 

She felt stupid for not having considered this solution before. Communication had been one of her strong suits at a point in time. She wondered at what point of her being with Evelyn had that fallen to the wayside.

 

“You’re right, God, you’re right,” Helen sighed. She pulled her hand away so that she could place her face into the cradle of both of her palms and shook her head back and forth before dropping her hands to the table and staring ahead blankly.

 

“I just have to pull myself together,” she murmured into the quiet room. She could hear the faint sound of clinking dishes and running water from the kitchen.

 

Helen turned the possibilities of what that conversation between herself and Evelyn would sound like… where it would lead. As she thought about all of that, she also thought about how much she missed her already.

 

And it had been less than twelve hours.

* * *

Monday night, both Helen and Evelyn stayed far after the building had closed. Hallways that were generally filled with students milling about were desolate as they congregated in the dining hall or retired to their dorms. Monday nights tended to be quiet around campus. The kids were strictly forbidden to go out and do hero work until they graduated, leaving any crime in the streets to be handled by a handful seasoned heroes who looked over the city instead.

 

As the school year began to pick up speed and actual assignments were steadily due, Helen was not entirely surprised that nothing on campus had been demolished during a raging party over the weekend. Things would surely loosen up as the months went on. The kids were always a bit hesitant to get wild at the beginning of the year. It was something about not yet knowing how to both dedicate themselves to their duty and have a good time. Even the upperclassmen needed about a month to remind themselves that college was supposed to be fun.

 

Helen would be returning to campus with beer pong tables made of ice on the quad again soon enough.

 

For now, though, they both sat in Evelyn’s office, nursing glasses of wine from a bottle that Evelyn had kept stashed beneath her desk. As the head of the technology department, Evelyn’s office was bigger than Helen’s by a decent amount. Her semi-circular workspace held enough room for three different computers serving various functions, and Evelyn currently sat at one of them in her obscenely nice office chair.

 

By obscenely nice, Helen meant that it, like much of the other seating in the department, floated above the floor by some magnetic technology that Helen didn’t comprehend. It moved whenever Evelyn pressed a button on the side of it, and she refrained from asking a million questions because she knew that Evelyn would give her the exact science and every bit of it would go right over her head.

 

Evelyn’s face was pinched as she typed furiously atop the keyboard of the computer in the center of the other two, the sound sharp against Helen’s ears. Helen sat on the opposite side of the desk in a guest seat. It wasn’t magnetic like Evelyn’s, but it sure was comfortable. She leaned back into the cushy material lining the back of it and held her glass in her lap.

 

“For as much wine as you’ve had, you’re really on edge,” Helen noted quietly. They hadn’t spoken in quite some time, Evelyn having been too engrossed in finding a way to get into a long list of state politicians’ bank statements to cross reference any other pay-offs to indulge her in conversation.

 

Now, though, Evelyn flashed those usually wandering blue eyes at her before zeroing them back onto the screen. Helen could see her knee bouncing beneath the desk.

 

“It’s gonna take a lot more than two glasses of wine to calm me down after all the caffeine I had today,” she said distractedly. Those eyes Helen always found herself so fascinated with scanned the screen as if she were reading something before clicking several things with the mouse and typing again.

 

“I thought you had been sleeping better lately?”

 

Evelyn cut her eyes to her accusingly, something else that looked suspiciously like anger or hurt flashing in them before she averted her gaze and Helen couldn’t tell anymore.

 

Helen realized the only thing that was different yesterday night, aside from their mind boggling foray into dangerously domestic territory and dinner at Bob and Mirage’s, was that Helen had slept in her own bed for once. Sans Evelyn.

 

“Oh,” she murmured, suddenly nervous. She raised the glass to her lips and took another slow sip of the bitter liquid.

 

“Why didn’t you call? I would’ve come over.”

 

Evelyn sighed, her leg raising into her desk chair to rest her foot on the edge and prop her head against her knee. The pressed, high-waisted dress pants and absurdly expensive collared shirt paired with the action had a certain dissonance to it.

 

“What thirty year old uses a booty call for someone to spoon them at night?” Evelyn asked, curling her lip as she spoke.

 

Helen’s heart thudded hollowly at the implication that she was merely a ‘booty call’. That’s what they were _supposed_ to be to each other, though, right? Mirage’s words about needing to have a serious conversation came back with painful clarity.

 

Before she could open her mouth, the wine making her just hazy enough to try and have the conversation in this office, Evelyn was apologizing. Helen hadn’t realized that her own face had drawn into a frown until then.

 

“That’s not…” Evelyn sighed and pulled away from the computer to give Helen her undivided attention. Her fingers rose to rub her index finger and thumb against her eyes to clear them.

 

“That’s not what I meant. I was _trying_ to say, it didn’t feel… appropriate. To call you for just that.”

 

Helen worried her bottom lip between her teeth and leaned forward until she could set her glass of wine on Evelyn’s desk, propping her chin up on her arms that folded on top of it. The wine was making her sleepy.

 

“You could have, you know,” Helen said eventually. She wondered if she should be worried about her loose tongue.

 

Those elusive blue eyes caught onto her’s at her words. Helen watched as Evelyn picked up her pen that had been laying beside her mouse atop an open notebook filled with scrawled information. Her thumb pressed into the top of it, a clicking sound striking through the silence of her office. That same hand then raised it to her lips as if doing so subconsciously, biting the extended button between two rows of flawless teeth.

 

“I think that’s why I didn’t,” Evelyn finally murmured.

 

That subtle acknowledgement of the something _extra_ that had been sneaking its way into the interactions between the both of them made tense silence fall back over the room in a cloud.

 

Neither of them knew how to proceed, as far as Helen could tell.

 

“Maybe we should stop doing this,” Evelyn murmured eventually. Her eyes were locked onto her notebook as she casually began jotting down more information from whatever it was pulled up on her screen.

 

Helen’s stomach dropped at the suggestion, and her panicked “ _What_?” washed over to Evelyn louder than she had intended. Her head had come up from where it sleepily rested in her arms— she was wide awake now.

 

“I’m saying that maybe I made a bad call. It’s rare, but it happens. If I had known things were going to get this… complicated, I wouldn’t have—“

 

Helen’s nostrils flared, “You wouldn’t have what? Practically begged me to risk my career for you?”

 

Helen did more than risk her job; she was risking her sanity at this point.

 

“Hey, you knew what you were getting into when you said yes.” Those blue eyes Helen always had trouble not getting distracted by bore into her intensely, and the hero paused in her anger to really _look_ at Evelyn.

 

The other woman wasn’t… annoyed, or angry.

 

She was _terrified_.

 

Her edginess throughout the day suddenly made a world of sense. There had been no scent of coffee on Evelyn’s breath the entire day that they were together— she wasn’t jittery from caffeine, she was anxious because whatever was raging between them was getting unbearably stifling.

 

Helen was willing to bet that, aside from sleeping alone last night, the reason she didn’t get much rest was because she was up until the early hours of the day thinking about what this little shift in dynamic meant for them. That’s what Helen had been doing, at least. Maybe the tiredness in her limbs was not from the wine, though she was sure that the red liquid certainly did not help.

 

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Evelyn sighed, and Helen reached across the desk to place her hand over the one that Evelyn was still writing with. The scribbling stopped, and blue eyes met hers fully.

 

“We need to talk about this,” Helen said softly.

 

“There isn’t anything to talk about,” Evelyn said, pulling her hand away as a frown set her full lips into a hard line.

 

Helen was getting sick of her dancing around having an adult conversation, and momentarily snapped, “Will you stop closing yourself off and _speak_ to me for once?” She drew her shunned hand back until it rested against the edge of the desk, trying to pretend that being rejected hadn’t hurt her as much as it really did.

 

“What do you think our relationship is? I don’t owe you a goddamn thing,” Evelyn growled, not even bothering to make eye contact as she spoke so viciously, her eyes trained on the computer screens and her hands typing furiously at the keyboard.

 

“As the woman who regularly shares a bed with me, I think you do,” Helen said lowly, well aware of the fact that anyone could pass by Evelyn’s office at any moment.

 

“Which is why I suggested that maybe we stop sharing one,” Evelyn said coldly, finally stopping to turn those ice blue eyes onto her. Her fingers stilled as well, resting both palms flat on her desk like she was going to push herself to her feet.

 

Helen leaned back in her seat and simply stared the other woman down. She could see right through Evelyn, as much as the other woman would hate to admit it. Helen wasn’t going to let her push whatever it was budding between them away because of her own fears over things that hardly had anything to do with her.

 

“What’s happening on this campus is heartbreaking, okay? I get it. You don’t feel comfortable working here anymore, you don’t feel safe around Supers anymore, and you’re conflicted about whatever is happening between us because you can’t justify your attraction to someone who is fundamentally something you want to hate. Please stop me if I’m wrong.”

 

The way that Evelyn flared her nostrils and turned away to glare off at some spot near her feet told Helen everything that she needed to know.

 

“Let everyone out there be hung up over the Supers and non-Supers bullshit,” the curse felt foreign on her tongue, yet fitting, “That doesn’t come between us, damn it, Evelyn. We may have done a lot of other things on the side, but you’re my friend first. Don’t treat me like you’ve forgotten that.” Helen heard her voice grow wobbly at the end, and she picked up her glass of wine to chug the rest of it down as she had watched Evelyn do so many times.

 

Bad habit to have picked up, she knew.

 

Evelyn ground her teeth together audibly, still staring off to the side while her eyes flicked back and forth without focus over something that Helen couldn’t see, solving some unknown problem in the air by breaking it down to its bare parts and putting it back together again her way. The furrow to her brow made her want to reach across the desk and smooth it out, but what came next shut her down before she could even seriously consider it.

 

“Fine. New rules,” she said. Her voice was steely, and Helen didn’t know how to react to it.

 

She also couldn’t help but note that they had never established old rules.

 

“You’re either _just_ my friend, or _just_ a body warming my bed. You choose.”

 

Helen stared at her in disbelief, her jaw going a bit slack as her chest just— _ached_ . She ached for the way that she visibly watched Evelyn close off in front of her, and she ached for the option that she _knew_ she would take though it would destroy her down the line.

 

How ironic that it had first been Evelyn willing to step into the fire, staring the destruction in the eye and daring it to fall upon them, and Helen was the one single handedly trying to prevent her world from falling apart. The reversal of their roles did not escape Helen, even in her wine-addled brain.

 

The blue eyes she constantly obsessed over stared hard at her, unwavering in her resolve, and Helen resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to willingly walk into fire of a different sort.

 

So instead of pleading for her not to do this to them, Helen closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before releasing one surprisingly steady breath.

 

“I guess I’m just a body, then. You can work on this alone, I’m done,” she tried to put as much ice into her voice as Evelyn’s, and scared herself with how well she did so.

 

She drew herself to her feet, moving the rolling chair back to where it had been previously against the wall, and shot one more look over her shoulder before exiting through her office door.

 

“Call me if you need that warm body in your bed. Otherwise, goodnight.”

 

And she left without turning to see her reaction, and without waiting to hear her response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The angst LEPT out. Whoops ;)
> 
> Hope y’all are enjoying the story so far, come yell at me over on tumblr (bakedgarnet). Much love!


	7. Come Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn takes Helen up on an offer, and Bob tries to make Helen feel better.

Helen got the text at 10:37pm.

 

Evelyn didn’t send an apology, or any other additional indication of her feelings. It said nothing but two words that made her thighs clench together and her heart ache terribly:

 

_ Come over. _

 

Helen had half a mind to be fuming mad; she should have been, really. Who was Evelyn to so callously disregard both of their feelings because of her own personal hang-ups? Who was she to turn so overwhelmingly cold out of the blue and then demand that she come spread her legs for her that very night? She wanted to hate her for this— for the way that her stomach clenched deliciously when she saw those two words.

 

Helen wanted to hate her for the way that she stood at Evelyn’s front door in the dead of night, waiting for it to open after ringing the doorbell.

 

She wanted to  _ despise _ her for how she opened the door in nothing but her silk robe— the mauve colored one; the other robe was still in Helen’s room— loosely tied around her body and revealing quite clearly that she had nothing on underneath.

 

Helen swallowed heavily as she walked into her decorative home, eyes roving, as they were always so itching to do there, over the abundance of art on the walls. Stepping inside felt like entering the mouth of a shark. 

 

Maybe she was a masochist.

 

The mouth of a shark shouldn’t feel so much like fate— like home.

 

Evelyn didn’t say a word as she slipped her arms around Helen from behind and pressed her forehead between her shoulder blades. Those usually domineering hands were unusually hesitant as they made their way beneath Helen’s shirt, drawing faint lines up and down her toned abdomen.

 

If Evelyn’s home was the shark’s mouth, then Evelyn was the inside of the shark. She was soft and sharp and cold all at once.

 

Helen shuddered at the feeling despite her best efforts to remain unaffected.

 

“Take your clothes off,” Evelyn murmured from behind her.

 

There was a strong scent of whiskey on her breath, and though Helen hated whiskey, she wanted to drown in it so long as she did so on Evelyn’s tongue.

 

Helen stripped right in the center of the living room as Evelyn’s arms slipped away from her to wander over to close and lock the door behind them. When she returned, Helen was slipping her pants off, moving to do the same with her underwear before Evelyn’s surprisingly gentle fingers stopped her.

 

“Leave those on,” she murmured against Helen’s partially bare back. 

 

So she stood in nothing but the red laced bra and underwear set she had changed into after showering and before driving over— she wasn’t able to help showing off for Evelyn, lord knew why.

 

Maybe some part of her had hoped that Evelyn would realize how stupid she was being about all of this after seeing her dripping in crimson and bending to her will, but standing there in the room with Evelyn’s sinful hands and frigid stare all over her, she could tell that a lingerie set couldn’t fix them.

 

The tip of Evelyn’s nose dragged down her neck, scenting her like fine wine and making Helen shiver against her front. She brushed her hands down to Helen’s hips and gripped her there for a moment, exerting control she had taken without a fight.

 

Evelyn’s thumbs dug into the waistline of her underwear and tugged it a bit, sliding around to the front so that she could grip the thin scrap of fabric firmly with both fists and tug it upward without warning. The cloth dragged deliciously between her legs, and Helen bowed her head desperately with a hitch of breath and a small shudder running through her.

 

The ache between her legs made her nearly chew a hole through her lip as she stood waiting for Evelyn to do with her as she pleased. 

 

“Stand against the wall for me,” Evelyn said, directing her toward the bare section of the wall beside the front door.

 

Helen moved as if on marionette strings, not registering anything but the throbbing between her legs. The heat of her own skin. The desire in her heart for the organ to reach out and shake Evelyn’s own beating one, demanding answers to why it would drive a wall between them this way.

 

She wanted to slap her for playing this game, for making her helpless in how she was now playing along with her. She wanted to hurt Evelyn as much as she wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe, and those warring sides of that same feuding coin rendered her incapable of doing anything at all.

 

She felt everything, though. The cold wall against her front and her palms as she pressed them into the wall as well, braced on either side of her shoulders. The feeling of Evelyn’s warm body lingering behind her as if her giant brain was working out all of the ways that she could break Helen in half before she made a move. She could feel Evelyn’s calm hands roaming from her arched back down to grip her ass in both hands, breathing out a shaky exhale as she pressed those full lips to her spine.

 

Her hands slid from Helen’s ass around to her front, two dexterous fingers taking their place between her legs in a comfortable display of how familiar they were there, and Helen dropped her forehead down onto the wall with a muted  _ thunk _ that may as well have been her tapping out. Waving the white flag.

 

She would let Evelyn take whatever she wanted from her. She would let Evelyn have it all.

 

And she hated herself for it because they were right back to free falling into tumultuous waters, wrapped around each other and diving into an endless abyss of sea with no regard for the parachute they could both use to pull themselves back up. 

 

Those two planets were hurtling toward each other even faster than before, gaining distance at an alarming speed, and this time neither tried to stop it from happening.

 

There were no visions of sunny days on the front lawn with tiny pattering feet and gentle kisses.

 

This was worse than chaos— this was death.

 

* * *

 

They stopped having lunch together.

 

Helen went to eat with Bob instead, sitting at the protein bar with decidedly less enthusiasm than she usually had when she hung out with him. One look at her face, she thought, and he probably already knew what happened.

 

She hadn’t had lunch with him again since his marriage to Mirage, and her admittedly gloomy demeanor was indication enough that things had spiraled out of control since the last time he talked to her about Evelyn.

 

He was smart enough not to tease her about it.

 

Instead, he asked if she wanted to spar like old times after their classes were finished, and the way that she felt her face brighten up explained why his smile got so wide in response. 

 

So, currently, they circled each other on the mat, Bob donning his super suit for nostalgia’s sake— why he kept it at the school instead of at home, she had no idea— and Helen in a pair of running shorts and a tank top that she kept in her office for when she had days in class dedicated to combat only.

 

Sweat dripped down her temple and back, and her muscles ached delightfully. She hadn’t gotten this good of a workout in quite some time— Bob was always the perfect sparring partner, and she had nearly allowed herself to grow rusty when it came to his tactics and tells. She used her speed and elusiveness against him for the most part. He may be made of steel and stronger than a Mack truck, but she would always play smarter and move like smoke through his attacks. 

 

The only sound in the large room was the noise of several students utilizing the weight room on the far side of them, their occasional grunts of effort and the sharp clanking of weights hitting the floor after a particularly heavy rep interrupting their jagged breaths. 

 

Bob’s face was stained red, and sweat coated his entire face until Helen found herself wondering how on earth he could see. 

 

She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek quickly, the skin coming away slick with sweat herself.

 

“You done?” She asked breathlessly. Bob released an amused chuckle, his shoulders bouncing a bit as he did so. He crouched down lower, tension bunching his muscles up beneath the blue and black design of his supersuit.

 

“Me? Looks like you’re ready to tap out, Hel!” he taunted her.

 

He had been doing that the entire time that they battled it out, and it was grating on her nerves to the point where she wanted to abandon all rules of their sparing and deck him one solid time. Her week had been going horribly enough as it was. This was supposed to be time for her to decompress from all of the awful, swirling feelings that kept kicking up pain in her gut if she pondered them for too long.

 

The last thing that she needed was Bob goading her on.

 

Instead of saying anything in response, she feigned to his right and extended her arm to punch him in the chest as he jumped directly into the side he thought she’d be going the opposite of. She knew that she was an angry fly compared to him, but it felt good to have a punching bag with a face connected to it. Their fighting dynamic worked because, while Bob was rock solid nearly all the way through, Helen’s elasticity prevented the impact from doing much damage to her at all. 

 

It was still a hell of a way to release the coiled anger that made her shoulders and neck tight, though. Thinking about it gave way to a face that flashed behind her eyelids and briefly made her see red. Sharp blue eyes, prone to taking in everything at once as they traveled a room constantly. Short hair the color of chestnuts that turned a little golden under the sun. A sharp jawline, and lips that Helen remembered so vividly that she landed an especially hard punch toward Bob’s chin.

 

One that had apparently left enough of an impact that he could tell there was far more force put into it than usual.

 

“Helen—“

 

“ _ Don’t _ , Bob,” she grunted, mixing in several different styles that she knew he had never seen before. She quickly had him pinned to the ground, one arm wrapped around his neck so many times that he grasped at her skin to pry her away. She could tell that he was trying not to hurt her, and the angry part inside of her that buzzed with misdirected rage used that to her benefit.

 

“ _ H-Helen _ ,” came Bob’s strained voice, breaking through the scarlet haze that had taken over her body. With a deep sigh, she released him and flopped down onto the ground beside his massive body until she was nothing but limbs that looked like cut string. 

 

She opened her eyes to look up into his concerned blue ones. They were entirely different than Evelyn’s. Smaller, and less tired. A deeper shade than Evelyn’s were. His were like the impenetrable blue of a clear summer sky. She used to be in love with those eyes, or so she thought, before she knew what love was. She would daydream about them in class. She would also go against every radical feminist bone in her body at the time and attach his last name after her first one in the margins of her notebooks like it was all some sort of middle school crush. 

 

Evelyn’s eyes, though, were the elusive blue of lake water. Somewhere between blue and gray depending on the sky and which color you were more inclined toward. They only looked gray in the dark of their bedrooms or beneath certain lighting in the building. Helen wasn’t sure what she felt for those eyes, but whatever it was outran what she had ever felt for Bob by miles. There was nothing inside of her that said this was a reasonable reaction to be having to a woman that she hadn’t known for more than a month.

 

“Maybe you need some time off. You can take a vacation, you know that, right? Dicker respects you. He’d understand.”

 

And the mentioning of Rick Dicker gave Helen pause because Bob had claimed to be investigating these things on his own, and yet had no qualms about their dean. Which meant that Bob was unaware of the bribe money he had been taking and likely had been misdirected by Dicker himself in order to keep the facade impenetrable. Or, maybe he did know, and was trying to protect her from the truth of—

 

_ Wait. _

 

Helen said that she was done with this. Evelyn could summon her for her own guilty pleasures as much as she wanted, but she had made it clear that they weren’t friends.

 

It was petty, Helen knew, abandoning something so astronomically important over a matter of pride, but her ego was still wounded, truth be told, and she couldn’t stand the thought of forcing anything with Evelyn that the tech genius didn’t want. So instead of opening a third investigation into whatever the maelstrom of disturbing events was that were plaguing the campus, she was going to stay out of it. The decision left something sick curling in her gut, but she needed a break from this.

 

“Yeah, maybe,” Helen sighed eventually. Her limbs felt heavy on the ground, and she slowly sat up before pushing herself to her feet. 

 

“I’m gonna go home. You should, too. It’s late,” she said, and then turned back to look at him with a half hearted smile, “Mirage might get worried.”

 

Bob chuckled and crossed his arms over his muscled chest as he watched her with eyes that so clearly said that he wanted to ask her for more information. He wanted to help. The concern in his gaze made her feel guilty, so she turned forward and continued her slow walk to the door as he responded. 

 

“She likes you, you know.”

 

Helen felt herself smile a bit, even though Bob couldn’t see it.

 

“You picked good,” and then a small chuckle fell from her lips as she remembered a tiny detail, “ _ Bobby _ .”

 

His indignant noise behind her was lost as she exited through the double doors, laughing a bit louder on her way out and only slightly forgetting about how much her heart ached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This angst train is still going strong, hold on guys gals and non binary pals ;) come yell about it with me on tumblr or in the comments. Much love and thanks for reading!


	8. Freedom of the Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn needs Helen's help, and they end up having a much needed conversation.

The chilled air and dead leaves of October were upon Urbem Heights University in the blink of an eye. The cloudy days and crunch of the colorful ground beneath her feet generally excited Helen. While she was mostly a fan of spring, autumn was her second favorite season. Her kids were finally getting into the heart of their learning, showing an exponential amount of growth in their fighting styles and awareness of battlefield, so to speak, compared to when classes had started in September. 

 

Something about knowing that Rick Dicker was corrupted had since shattered Helen’s sense of dedication to the rules. 

 

Far less anal about protocol than she used to be, students got away with far more in her class now than they ever had in the past. Her grading grew more lenient, not so much as focused on precision. She really only cared about how her students used what was available to them, not just what she had directly expressed for them to do. Awards given for creativity were also new, but not unwelcome if the increase in A’s and B’s in her class said anything.

 

She showed up on time for the most part, but didn’t go out of her way to arrive hours early before class to prep for the day. Winging it became a new skill beneath her belt, one that her students ate out of the palm of her hand. She knew that she had been a fairly popular professor before, but it hadn’t escaped her that the popularity had mostly to do because she had a body like hers surrounded by hundreds of hormone driven young adults. She’d overheard the comments.

 

One thing about fighting crime for so long, one learned to choose their battles. 

 

Now, though, the comments had strayed less from being along the lines of, 

 

_ You should take intro to combat next semester. Ms. T’s thick as  _ hell.

 

To something that resembled comments like,

 

_ You should take intro to combat with Truax! She’s so  _ nice _ and actually talks to us like adults instead of some stupid kids who don’t know anything about our powers _ .

 

She had to admit, the shift in direction it all took made her smile.

 

She saw Evelyn so rarely that she had to wonder if she even showed up to work. She was likely holed away in her office when she wasn’t teaching class, and even then she still had an abundance of meetings to attend as the head of an entire department. When she  _ did _ see her, though, it was under the roof of her condo, the skylight beaming the moon’s luminescence over nothing but their bare bodies as Evelyn took her against any and every available surface. 

 

The texts to come over had been fairly far between, with the only thing Helen could guess at having set them off being the long periods of time the campus went without serious incident, and then the radio silence would return after tensions between the Supers and non-Supers ratcheted up again with some incident or another.

 

Helen was smart enough to put the pieces together.

 

The energy surrounding the university had even made it to the news, sparking national debates about what the situation said about the country’s inter-relational capabilities that a relatively small university of Supers and non-Supers couldn’t even coexist in peace. 

 

In the midst of it all, one night, Helen got another text. This one was very different from the rest, all holding the same words one after the other in her phone because Helen never replied in any way but showing up on her doorstep.

 

_ Need your help. Omw to you. _

 

Helen stared down at her phone, puzzled feelings slashing through her as her heart rate increased dramatically. She cursed her palms for the way that they broke into a sweat— for the way that her stomach clenched, but not in fear or panic.

 

With hesitant fingers, her thumbs lingered over the screen of her phone for much longer than she had meant them to before finally typing out:

 

_ With what? _

 

The little ‘ _ read _ ’ message appeared beneath her response, and three dots in a text bubble appeared for several long seconds until it was gone in the blink of an eye. Helen kept staring, hoping that maybe she was just thinking of a reply, but knowing ultimately that Evelyn wasn’t going to tell her a thing. Helen sat her phone down onto the island countertop with more aggression than she had intended, and rose to her slipper-covered feet with trepidation making her stomach lurch.

 

When Evelyn finally arrived, ringing the doorbell instead of knocking like she had in the past, Helen drew her robe tighter around herself. Her cotton pajama pants brushed against her legs as she went, and the brief sensation reminded her that she would much rather be in bed.

 

Opening the door revealed the face of the woman she was both excited and loathe to see. It was a tumultuous feeling in her gut that refused to give her room to breathe as soon as Evelyn looked up at her. She didn’t push her way inside, or even immediately begin getting to business. She looked smaller, more nervous, standing in Helen’s front door instead of this interaction being the other way around.

 

Her tired eyes looked heavier than usual, a perpetual crease between her eyebrows made by what looked like the effort of keeping them open. Her arms were drawn around herself, an absurdly stylish trench coat held together not by buttons, but by her crossed arms. The late evening’s setting sun washed her skin in a pinkish glow, and her face, devoid of makeup, was soft. The hard lines of sexual frustration that Helen had been witnessing for their recent encounters were wiped away and replaced, instead, by something both hesitant and gentle.

 

“Can I come in?” Evelyn rasped, sounding more exhausted than usual. Her fingers tightened around the material of her coat at the tops of her arms, eyes roving everywhere and never settling on any space for more than a couple seconds at a time. Her gaze was not the typical quick darting of eyes, absorbing all information in milliseconds before tying it immediately to the next thing. This was more like a gentle caress across the entire scene like one stroke of a paintbrush, taking it all in with a single sweep and waiting to piece it together for the whole picture.

 

Helen stepped backward and allowed her inside, frowning a bit herself at the shift in demeanor as she shut the door behind both of them.

 

Both of them standing with their arms crossed, Helen swallowed thickly before saying, “Should I take my clothes off?”

 

She’d never had to ask before, but the drastic change of energy between them was making her hesitant to do anything rash. Evelyn’s face twitched into one of surprise, her full lips parting and pinched brows shooting upward before her features slowly schooled themselves back into an expression as neutral as it could get with the clear fatigue in her muscles.

 

“No, no, this isn’t—“ her hands went to her face as she forced herself to take a deep breath. Both palms covered an eye before dragging them down her face until they only covered her mouth and nose.

 

“Blazestone is in one of your classes,” Evelyn said eventually, as if she wasn’t dropping an alarmingly crucial piece of information between them like an active bomb, “and I need you to do some digging on her— ask to see her after class, say there’s an issue with her grades, I don’t care. I know you said you were done, but this is bigger than I thought it was, and,” she sighed heavily, “I need your help.”

 

“And you couldn’t have texted me that? Or called?” Helen asked, feeling petty despite the shock that had turned her grip onto her upper arms sharp.

 

Evelyn’s face drew into a harsh scowl as she dropped her hands from her face, jabbing one perfectly manicured finger toward her.

 

“This shit is more important than whatever the hell is happening between us, Helen!”

 

Helen looked into those tired eyes, ignited with a spark of something volatile, but on the verge of flickering out at any moment. Evelyn was running on fumes, she could tell, and she absently wondered how long it would be until she gave out.

 

“ _ I _ know that! Do you? Because when I wanted to help you figure out what the hell was going on, you gave me an ultimatum!” The tightness in Helen’s chest was from something she couldn’t put a name to. Evelyn wasn’t trying to bait her, she knew, but something in her was aching for a fight— a reason to lash out at her for causing those tumultuous emotions for the past two months.

 

She uncrossed her arms, laying them at her sides as if willing the tension to reach a boiling point and strike her directly through the chest.

 

“And which one did you choose?” Evelyn sneered, taking a bold step toward her. Brows drawn down over her nose as they were, paired with the dark circles beneath her eyes and the curl of her lips, Helen genuinely felt fear slither through her body.

 

Without anything scathing enough to say immediately, she was left floundering for a suspended second, grasping for a retort and coming up empty until the only thing left to throw back was the truth.

 

“You knew which one I would choose,” she said bitterly.

 

Evelyn’s frowning face grew slightly less intense, as if she no longer had the energy to maintain the amount of effort it took to keep it in place. She scoffed, turning on her heel and walking several steps away. She might have been thinking, if the way that her hands clasped together behind her back indicated anything. The trench coat around her body flared as she turned, and then settled back down around her legs. She dipped her head downward for several moments before turning back suddenly and piercing Helen with her wintery eyes.

 

“You know, that’s where you threw me for a loop,  _ Elastigirl _ . ‘Nothing beyond your reach’,” she mocked, “except, perhaps, the greater good when pitted against your… what, your  _ feelings _ for me?” She asked with an exaggerated raising of her eyebrows. Her bottom lip found its way between her teeth like she was staving off laughter. Her chest trembled a bit, the chuckles kept trapped inside of it.

 

“Don’t start this,” Helen glared, clenching her fists at her sides and making a move toward her front door, every intention of opening it and kicking the other woman out spurring her muscles onward.

 

“No,  _ you _ started this!” Evelyn exploded suddenly, voice cracking when strained. Helen jolted to a stop at the outburst, turning back around to face her with shock gripping her pounding heart. “You got into my brain, you  _ ruined _ —” Evelyn took a deep breath, placing the heels of her palms back against her eyes. She looked like she was on the cusp of a meltdown, and she had looked that way since she showed up on Helen’s doorstep, but seeing it come to a head right before her eyes was something slightly terrifying to witness— like a burning building collapsing to rubble amidst hundreds of endangered bystanders.

 

“What did I ruin, Evelyn?” Helen asked, a quiet chill to her voice, “What could I possibly have  _ ruined _ by caring about you?” The burning behind her own eyes made her furious, unexplainably enraged by the effect that Evelyn still had on her despite everything. Her arms crossed back over her chest, fists gripping the upper arms of her robe like they would keep her together by sheer force alone.

 

Evelyn dropped her hands from her eyes and turned away before Helen could catch her expression. She slowly wandered over to the bookshelf adjacent to the flat screen television, her fingers dragging over various knick knacks and trophies that had built up to be displayed there over the years. Her feet stopped her at a plaque containing a key to the city that  _ Elastigirl _ was presented with in 1998, and a disbelieving breath of a laugh exited her lips before she spoke again.

 

“You know, the only real freedom we have is freedom of the mind.” The exhaustion in her voice returned tenfold. Helen couldn’t see her face still, and her own anger ratcheted upward with a quickness that shocked her.

 

“ _ What  _ are you talking about?” She asked.

 

“Every physical freedom we experience in this world is an illusion. For example, an illusion of freedom from prison because we aren’t in a cage— and yet we’re trapped in a cage of capitalistic greed, forced to feed the machine or else we end up with nothing. Driven toward man-made ideals of success out of fear of poverty and social ostracism—“ 

 

Helen’s hyper-emotional turmoil didn’t allow her to follow just wherever the hell Evelyn’s brain had veered off to, the entire shift in conversation taking a route that didn’t have a road. Evelyn was steering them through fallen trees and overgrown brush, hands off of the wheel and foot flat on the gas.

 

“Evelyn—“

 

“ _ Jesus _ , will you let me finish?” Evelyn’s snapped, turning to look over her shoulder at Helen with eyes narrowed into violent slits before turning back around and continuing to drag her fingers over the gold of the old-fashioned key. Surely, her hand came away with a layer of dust. Helen hadn’t even looked at the thing in years.

 

“You’re rambling,” Helen said pointedly, huffing out a defeated sigh and dragging her slipper-covered feet over to the couch so that she could sink into its cushions and steel herself for the inevitable winding road of Evelyn’s thoughts they were about to go down.

 

“I’m  _ explaining myself _ ! Fuck,” she cursed under her breath, seemingly put out with Helen’s unwillingness to listen to her.

 

Helen gestured for her to continue, wishing suddenly that she hadn’t made herself comfortable on the couch already with her legs curled beneath her and her elbow propped on the back of the seat, fist holding her head up at her cheek. She really wanted a glass of wine for this conversation.

 

“As I was saying… we perceive freedom in the way it was presented to us at birth. The ability to do whatever we want without limitation— but we  _ don’t _ , not really. Social cues, cultural norms… all of that cages us, too. We don’t freely speak our minds because we’re not  _ supposed to _ even though we can—“ she paused abruptly, picking up a candle sitting beside the key and bringing it to her nose. She took a deep inhale, letting out a pleased hum before setting it back down.

 

Seeming to remember herself, she continued, “So the only real freedom that we have, Helen,” Evelyn said, turning back toward her slowly, “is freedom of the mind.”

 

Helen watched her warily, feeling something strange turn in her gut as she allowed her eyes to follow Evelyn’s every movement. She had a sense that whatever she was going to say next was about to explain her strange foray into this philosophical monologue, and she was unsure of whether or not she was ready to hear it after all.

 

“My thoughts are supposed to be my own. Completely and utterly impenetrable. Free from everyone else as long as they’re in my head, and free to change and grow as they please… and  _ yet _ —“ she breathed out a sharp shot of air through her frowning lips, “you’re inside of them  _ constantly _ . To the point where I can’t even focus…” the last word trailed off into a devastated, breathy chuckle.

 

“I feel like you stole my brain from me.  _ My _ brain, that I grew and watered until I was the most brilliant person in any room—“ her voice hitched, and what Helen thought would be a tearful sigh turned into a slightly hysterical laugh.

 

“ _ My  _ thoughts, that I had full control over. You just… tainted them. Bent them to your will. And the worst part is that you had no clue until I just told you,” Evelyn admitted, voice cracking once more. 

 

The shock and sadness that ripped through Helen’s chest at once confused her until she had no words. Her mind went blank, unable to formulate a single response in anger, sympathy or sadness. Every single word bank was empty. All that was left were lines on the paper where her thoughts should go, but she was perpetually coming up vacant no matter how frantically she looked.

 

“That being said, your feelings, my feelings,  _ whatever _ — don’t matter until I can find some type of control over that giant,  _ stupid _ organ in my head. So, I’ll give you another ultimatum. Help me find out more about Blazestone, or don’t expect another word from me.”

 

Helen was speared, positive that the prickling behind her eyes had finally reached the point where the budding tears would overflow at any second.

 

“Give me a reason to go back off the grid to my lab. To quit this fucking job and never see you again,” Evelyn turned around finally, and her eyes were wet. Jaw clenched tight enough that it was noticeable even from across the room, her chest heaved once with a shaky breath.

 

“Why didn’t you…” Helen was about to continue with ‘ _ say something before _ ’, but the reasoning why was clear as day on Evelyn’s face. She was broken by this, by  _ her _ . Her pride far too strong to admit that someone had brought her of all people to her knees. 

 

She swallowed through the tightness in her throat and dropped her pained gaze down to her other hand laid across her lap.

 

“I’m sorry,” Helen said after a long pause, blinking twice and watching as two droplets of water jumped from her eyes to land on the back of her hand. 

 

“What are you apologizing for? I used you for sex for an entire month, you should be  _ livid _ right now! What happened to that anger from earlier? Why are you Supers all so fucking self-righteous?” Evelyn griped, firing off question after question. Her hands cut through the air like blades with the erratic way that they moved to emphasize her point.

 

“Didn’t you say that’s what I chose for myself? You didn’t make me show up at your door every time you texted,” Helen murmured calmly, realizing that if she spoke in a low enough voice then Evelyn couldn’t hear how it trembled. Her eyes dropped back down to her hand once more, turning it over to wipe the dampness from her tears on the fluffy material of her robe.

 

“Do you want a drink?” Helen asked suddenly, lifting her heavy gaze up to rest on Evelyn’s expressively perplexed face. She would have been impressed at catching Evelyn of all people off guard had this situation been any different, but for now she was only somber.

 

“Do I want a drink?” Evelyn repeated, scoffing as she turned her back to Helen once more and faced the bookshelf. A deep sigh made her shoulders rise up around her neck before falling. After a brief pause, she moved suddenly to discard her trench coat. Her Chelsea-booted feet carried her over to the coat hanger near the front door where she gently placed the jacket and began to move toward the kitchen without another word.

 

Helen watched her go with a hollow feeling in her gut, drawing herself up to her feet and righting her robe around herself before following the other woman. When she breached the threshold of the moderately sized kitchen, Evelyn was inspecting a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc displayed in a wine holder on the counter. Her lower lip jutted out a bit as she read the back of the label, humming to herself in approval before holding the bottle up and waving it once.

 

Without needing further instruction, Helen turned to her right and opened one of the many drawers beside the sink to withdraw a wine opener. She held her hand out for the bottle as she bumped the drawer closed with her hip, and Evelyn placed it in her palm without a word. While Helen worked the cork out of the top of the bottle, Evelyn dropped herself down onto the stool at the island counter and held her heavy head up with one palm while the other arm rested across her lap.

 

“I thought I was the one who drank away her problems between us,” Evelyn commented finally. 

 

Helen’s eyes flickered up at the other woman as the cork popped out of the bottle, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at her as she set the opener and the cork down onto the counter and plucked two glasses out of the dish rack.

 

The only sound in the otherwise silent home was the tinkling noise of those two rounded glasses being filled with the pale colored alcohol.

 

Helen set the bottle back down with a sharp  _ clink _ , and turned her body around to set one of the filled glasses in front of Evelyn’s undeniably fatigued body.

 

Evelyn picked the glass up between her thumb and index finger, swirling the liquid a bit before asking, “Got any ice?”

 

Helen felt a glare come over her face without any permission from herself, and at the sight of it Evelyn immediately held up her other hand placatingly. 

 

“Alright, no ice.”

 

The scene looked suspiciously similar to all of that time ago, Evelyn drinking whisky from the bottle as she allowed an ominous, philosophical rant to spill from her intoxicated mouth. Helen, despite the fear it had struck through her, had lapped it up— ears tuned into every single word.

 

Evelyn pressed the lip of the glass to her mouth and closed her eyes in pleasure as she allowed the warm liquid to slide down her throat, bobbing with every swallow. Helen watched as if in a trance, following her tongue as it poked between her lips after the glass was empty to clear any remaining liquid from the corner of her mouth. That tongue which had done so many wicked things to her body over the past two months. She felt her thighs squeeze together as she watched and mentally berated herself for being so weak. 

 

Evelyn set the glass down on top of the counter sharply, silently demanding another.

 

Helen poured it.

 

Realizing that she had been staring instead of drinking herself, she took a long swig from her own glass and leaned her back against the counter behind her, which was pressed up against the side of the refrigerator.

 

“Do you hate me?” She asked suddenly.

 

Slowly melting, but still cold, eyes turned to look at her immediately as a bitter laugh tore through Evelyn’s lips.

 

“Do you think I waste this much time crying over people I hate?” 

 

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Helen contemplated her words as she studied her haggard appearance— a slightly wrinkled army green mock-neck long sleeve and high waisted black slacks that were cut to her form as if custom tailored.

 

“Wish I did, though. It would make this so much easier,” Evelyn murmured the last part mostly to herself as she took another long sip from her glass.

 

Helen stared down into her drink, the constant frown on her face beginning to make the spot between her eyebrows throb. She swallowed the tightness in her throat once, sniffing before bringing the glass back to her lips— she finished the entire thing and turned the bottle back over to refill it herself.

 

“What do you want from me?”

 

Helen’s question was simple enough, and when she looked at Evelyn, saw her red eyes and pursed lips, she fought the urge to reach out and touch her. She wasn’t sure where, but she just wanted to connect to her in some way that wasn’t sexual for once. She ached for the entire expanse of hidden layers kept away from her, and the look in Evelyn’s gaze said that she could tell.

 

“I want—“ Evelyn sighed shakily, throwing the glass back once more and setting it down to put the heels of her hands back into her eyes. She rubbed them vigorously, shaking her head twice before throwing her palms down onto the table and staring straight ahead toward the other side of the kitchen.

 

“I just want you,” she said, and the way that her voice cracked so pitifully made Helen’s heart break three times over. Evelyn raised her right hand and covered her eyes with it, tilting her head downward until her expression was hidden. Her shoulders rose and fell once before a shudder wracked through her body, and Helen took an instinctual step forward.

 

“Evelyn,” she whispered, reaching her free hand out. She stopped it halfway, her fingers hovering in the foot of space between them, hesitant to keep going. It dropped back down to her side uselessly.

 

“I want you, and I  _ hate _ myself for it because I thought that I was above this— above being whittled down to  _ this, _ ” she said, using her other hand to vaguely gesture at herself, “by emotions. I grew out of that when my parents died, or so I thought. Then you showed up and just—” her watery laugh was nothing but a jerked breath of air.

 

“Why don’t _ you _ hate  _ me _ ?” Evelyn asked, cutting herself off and taking Helen unbelievably off guard.

 

Helen shook her head, nostrils flaring as she held back whatever the burst of emotion that moved through her was about to manifest itself as verbally.

 

“I haven’t had enough wine for this conversation,” Helen sighed, finishing her second glass as well. Evelyn’s eyes darted to her hand holding the cup and narrowed slightly, as if figuring out that Helen was matching every drink that she had.

 

“Got any more of that whiskey?” Evelyn asked wryly, and the small smile on her lips was like a hand extending a truce. 

 

Helen smiled back, wider, and said, “You sure that’s smart?”

 

Evelyn cocked an eyebrow, her head drooping forward until she looked at Helen from beneath her thick eyelashes.

 

“Anything I do is smart. I’m me.”

 

Helen snorted despite herself, turning around and opening the cabinet above her to retrieve the half empty bottle of whisky from it. She stretched her arm and sat it down in front of Evelyn’s lazy form, watching with a shaking head as she poured a hefty amount into the empty wine glass and immediately took a large gulp.

 

Evelyn grabbed the open bottle by its neck and extended it back to her, “Drink up, Hel.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the parent driving a car full of kids chanting "McDonalds, McDonalds!" in the back seat and instead I drive you all to the international house of angst. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, get ready for a drunk convo next chapter :)


	9. Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn apologizes with a little help, and Helen gains insight on Blazestone.

“Why did I let you talk me into this?” Helen slurred a bit, frowning down into her glass at the last dredges of whiskey that just barely covered the bottom. She tilted the cup this way and that, watching the dark brown alcohol rotate about the cup in sudden fascination. Her mind felt far more cloudy than it had in quite some time, and with a slow glance, she inspected the bottle itself through squinted eyes.

 

Empty.

 

_Damn you, Evelyn._

 

“You have shit self control and a competitive spirit,” Evelyn snorted into her glass as she threw the last of it back as if it were water. Helen watched her in drunken admiration, and leaned in to get extremely close.

 

“Are you sure you don’t have a drinking problem?”

 

Evelyn set the glass down onto the counter with a sharp _clink_ and turned to look at her with a cocked brow and a smile playing on her lips.

 

“Have you not matched me every time I’ve drank with you since the first whisky incident?”

 

Helen felt confusion wash over her, ignoring Evelyn’s admittedly valid point to then ask, “First?”

 

Evelyn leaned in toward her, impossibly close, so close that Helen could see just how stormily blue and electrifying her eyes were. She felt her stomach tighten in anticipation of— she wasn’t sure what. The static in the air was just enough to leave the hair on her arms standing on end.

 

“I’m going to have to be the adult here, I see, and admit that this,” she gestured between the two of them with one perfectly manicured nail, “is incident number two.”

 

Helen allowed a smile to come over her lips, spurred on so easily by the alcohol, and dropped her forehead down onto the table. The room spun when she did so, and she immediately picked her head up and re-opened her eyes.

 

“You might be right,” she murmured, a nervous laugh on her lips.

 

“Are you okay?” Evelyn asked, suddenly a note of concern in her voice that Helen hadn’t heard since before they became strictly beneficial to each other’s sex life. She missed that gentle care, the soft passing touches and that one lingering, intimate kiss that had set her soul ablaze. She missed _Evelyn,_ and her earlier question of why she didn’t hate her resurfaced immediately.

 

“I don’t hate you because I don’t think—“ Helen put her fist to her lips and took a deep breath through the sudden wave of nausea. She tried to think back to the last thing she had eaten before drinking and couldn’t dredge up any reliable information.

 

Once it passed, she dropped her fist down onto the counter, flattening it out and looking Evelyn directly in the eye. Her eyes felt heavy with her inebriation, and she knew without looking in a mirror that her eyelids were as low as Evelyn’s on a regular basis.

 

“I don’t think I can.”

 

The simple words seemed to take Evelyn off guard, the other woman opening her mouth with an admittedly adorable frown of confusion twisting her face up before closing it once more. Helen studied her eyes even more closely, realizing for what might have been the first time how large her eyes really were. Had she not always been displaying a look of half-lidded exhaustion, she might actually be doe-eyed.

 

The thought of Evelyn Deavor, wide eyed and innocently clueless, took over her mind for a moment, and a chuckle made her shoulders shake as she turned her head to look back down at the cup in front of her.

 

“Ignoring that you think that’s _funny_ ,” Evelyn began, casting her a wary look, “What do you mean you can’t? Is this another…” her hand wandered into the air and rotated about her wrist in a circular motion as she tried to find the right word in her alcohol-laden mind.

 

“...self righteous hero thing here? Because I have to admit, while it’s working in my favor, I have a hard time believing that’s true.” Evelyn pushed her glass away and stood up from the stool.

 

Helen watched her behind clouded eyes as she rounded the island counter and picked up both of their glasses as well as the empty bottle.

 

“You wanna know something awful?” Helen asked, closing her eyes once more and allowing the spinning chaos inside of her head to make her dizzy.

 

“Hm?”

 

She heard the water run, and could tell that Evelyn was washing the glasses out. Her heart gave an unsteady thump before she continued.

 

“I would imagine what it would be like,” Helen whispered into the blackness that her closed eyes surrounded her with, “if we were in love. A healthy love. If one day we—“ she cut herself off and tried to focus on the swirling darkness instead of the other body that was less than ten feet away.

 

“If one day we started a family,” Helen released a breath of a laugh through her lips, dropping her head down even though her closed eyed view stayed the same.

 

“It’s stupid, you don’t have to tell me, but how could I go from _that_ to hating you, Evelyn? If I hated you, I wouldn’t have showed up at your door every time you texted me. I could have done so many things differently and yet… here I am. Right where you want me,” she opened her eyes and was slightly startled to see that Evelyn was facing her now, lower back against the sink and arms crossed tightly across her chest. The two glasses sat dripping wet on the dish rack beside her, and the empty whiskey bottle was nowhere in sight. Helen hadn’t even noticed the water turning off.

 

“I’m here, Ev,” Helen said with a sad smile and a shrug moving her shoulders up around her neck.

 

Evelyn swallowed heavily and took two hesitant steps forward before closing the distance between them in half as much time. Her cool hands found either side of Helen’s cheeks and tilted her face up until their lips just barely brushed together.

 

“We could be that,” Evelyn murmured, a certain waver to her voice that was the only indication of how deeply her emotions ran, “We could be in love. A healthy one,” she breathed and closed her eyes as if she were in pain.

 

Helen pressed forward to try and capture her lips, but Evelyn pulled back just as much.

 

“But you _have_ to stop forgiving me for hurting you,” Evelyn whispered, and Helen’s heart broke just a bit for Evelyn, yes, but mostly herself. She was right.

 

“Then where is my apology?” Helen asked.

 

Evelyn’s lips lowered down onto hers ever so gently, sighing as if giving up a long standing battle.

 

“I’m so sorry,” a kiss, “I am so, _so_ sorry,” another kiss.

 

Helen wound her arms around her neck, drawing up closer to Evelyn, who moved her hands from her cheeks to rest loosely around her waist, and said, “I don't forgive you.”

 

And, despite her own words, Helen kissed her harder in return.

 

Evelyn released a shuddering breath into her mouth and climbed up into Helen’s lap on the stool to embrace her properly. Helen rested her back against the edge of the counter for support and gripped Evelyn’s thighs in her hands to hold the other woman steady as her tongue pressed insistently into her mouth.

 

Helen’s senses overwhelmed her as they melted into each other, blending together until they were a single body trying to find its footing in a new form. Evelyn’s lips moved against hers like they were running out of time, like Helen would change her mind at any given second and push her away forever.

 

Helen just gripped her tighter, using one arm to hold her thigh and the other to wrap several times around her waist and pull her impossibly closer. This was the most control she’d had over Evelyn sexually since before they split apart as friends, and the feeling of being able to pull her and push her however she pleased sent jolts of electricity through her veins that made her heart stutter.

 

Evelyn’s body was soft and pliable under her hands, and Helen used the arm wrapped around her torso to stretch even further so that her palm could cup one of her breasts through the thin mock-neck shirt.

 

Evelyn groaned into her mouth, grinding down onto her lap. The response was so instantaneous that Helen’s next breath trembled, and the hand on Evelyn’s thigh pulled her harder down against her to cause sweet, hot friction between the other woman’s legs.

 

Evelyn broke away suddenly though, her breaths panted out and scented of whiskey as she said, “No, not while you’re drunk.”

 

Helen threw her head back in exasperation, her brain rolling with the alcohol, “You’re joking, right?”

 

Evelyn frowned and climbed down off of her lap, pressing her arms back across her chest defiantly, “No, I’m not. You’re going to go to bed, and I’m going to go home— we’ll revisit this,” she gestured between the two of them, “another time.”

 

Helen was left with an aching burn in her bones, her muscles still tensed as they would be in anticipation for the wet heat of Evelyn’s mouth as well as the same between her thighs. She wanted to make her fall in love through touch alone— she wanted to make love to her.

 

Her equilibrium pitched once more as she moved to her feet.

 

Evelyn was right again. She was far too drunk.

 

“You’re not driving anywhere tonight,” Helen said instead of arguing. Evelyn looked at her sheepishly, as if she knew that was the response she would get, and rubbed her hand over her face one time.

 

“You might have a point.”

 

They shared a bed again without having sex with each other, and that time it wasn’t out of the ordinary at all.

* * *

“Well, you could… but when the building blows up I don’t want you telling the dean that I said it was okay.”

 

Evelyn’s voice trailed outside of her open lecture hall door, and Helen peeked her head around the frame to peer inside and down the stairway. All of her students had some sort of device in front of them, many tools scattered about every kid’s individual desk as they all focused immensely on trying to create— whatever the hell it was that maintained the distinct smell of gasoline.

 

Evelyn herself was perched on her desk at the bottom of the stairs and in the front of the room, legs drawn up to fold up on the top of her workspace with one elbow digging into the side of her knee as her fist held her cheek up. She was the perfect image of an unamused genius. Droopy eyes, slowly drawled voice and all.

 

Another student’s hand shot up immediately, and Evelyn’s lazy gaze turned onto her before raising an eyebrow expectantly.

 

“Moreno, what’s wrong?”

 

“I’m sorry, I know we went over this, but where does the titanium tubing fit through the barrel?” The girl’s high pitched voice was such a stark contrast from Evelyn’s that Helen’s eyes searched her out instinctively. She looked familiar, maybe on a sports team that Helen couldn’t quite place.

 

“It needs to feed into the muzzle. I took the diagram down because you all aren’t going to have a tutorial guiding you on the field. You need to memorize schematics at a moment’s noti—“

 

Evelyn’s eyes caught Helen’s in that moment, and she briefly stumbled over her words before continuing as if the interruption never occurred. When she was finished speaking, and with a sigh, she swung her legs down from her desk and instructed her kids not to “destroy the building” while she took care of something outside.

 

Once Evelyn reached the top of the stairs and made her way through the door to stand in front of her, Helen found herself unable to look away from her face. She looked rested— genuinely rested— for the first time in ages. Her eyes looked wider and more alert upon seeing Helen, and the Super could tell that she had only looked so unamused in the classroom because she was truly bored. Helen figured that, for someone who was more of a fan of giant explosions and intricate weaponry, Evelyn was working far below her usual speed to catch her kids up to where they needed to be.

 

“What? What’s wrong?” Evelyn asked eventually, impatient in a way that surprised Helen for a reason that shouldn’t have been shocking— she was teaching a class and valued her work. Helen was taking her away from her job.

 

She would make it concise.

 

“Oh, right, I have a meeting scheduled with Riley Sutton, Blazestone, at five. I didn’t know if you wanted to wait around so that we could go over the intel right after I get it, or meet later tonight?” Her question trailed off, and even she could hear the suggestive tone in her own voice. She hadn’t intended for their possible meeting later tonight to mean anything more than regular business, but, in the greater context of everything, anything with Evelyn always meant something deeper.

 

Evelyn held her hand on a cocked hip as she leaned her shoulder against the doorframe of her classroom, twisting her lips to the side and bouncing her head slightly as she thought about it. Her eyes roved the carpet as she did so, and Helen watched the gears turn behind her head with an endeared smile.

 

“I have to hold a meeting with the tech department for some staff development shit at five-thirty, but I’ll try to keep it short so you’re not waiting too long,” Evelyn finally said, looking into her eyes once more.

 

“I don’t want you rushing—“

 

“Hel, it’s your regular bullshit staff meeting to check in on how everyone’s doing with the curriculum. It’ll take forty-five minutes at worst.”

 

The smell of burning gas made its way to Helen’s nostrils, and before she could peek around Evelyn’s shoulder to make out exactly what it was that toed the line between a little fire and an inferno, they both heard a concerned voice call out to the hallway from the top row of seats, “Uh… Dr. Deavor?”

 

Evelyn’s face fell into one of calm disappointment rather than shock or alarm as Helen’s did, and she looked at the retired hero with an apologetic smile before walking briskly back into the room to handle whatever had gone wrong. Helen watched Evelyn methodically put the flame out, murmuring something too low to hear to the student who had made the misstep. She seemed gentle with them, content to allow their mistakes without beating them up over it.

 

A feeling of acute fondness wrapped itself around her chest until her heart constricted as well, and she turned on her heel to return to her own classroom downstairs. Flat shoes tapping lightly against the tiled floors, Helen was several steps away from the stairwell when Rick Dicker stepped around the corner on the other end of the walkway.

 

“Helen… always such a pleasure to see you.” His weathered face looked tired and wrinkled, and his posture was so bad that he seemed to perpetually be hunched forward. She had once admired this man, looked to him like one would a mentor, or a father figure. Now, though, she looked at him and had to bite back her disgust at is disingenuous nature.

 

“Mr. Dicker—“

 

“Mr. Dicker? You haven’t called me that since you first got hired here. When did it stop being Rick?” His eyes twinkled with mirth as he reached out and nudged her shoulder, “Ricky when you’re drunk.”

 

Helen’s face warmed considerably, and she pursed her lips together as her head ducked down.

 

“That was one Christmas party, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from joking about that in my place of work.”

 

Rick looked taken aback by her shift in attitude toward him, and Helen had half a mind to feel guilty— if only because she still cared for him despite all that was going on, and he had no way of knowing why anything had changed between them. She wanted him to know what he was being given the cold shoulder for, but couldn’t tell him because it would compromise everything that Evelyn had worked toward.

 

“I… apologize, then. Had no idea you felt so strongly. I’d best be on my way, then. Got a meeting in about two hours I need to prepare for,” he said, clasping his large hands behind his back and dipping his head once in acknowledgement of their new stance on each other before turning back where he came, “You have a good one, Ms. Truax.”

 

And then he was gone just as suddenly as he appeared, Helen staring after his back with a tight throat and an aching heart.

 

She swallowed heavily a moment after he was gone and took a deep breath, allowing the air to build in her lungs and expand her chest— feeling the strain of it against her rib cage until she exhaled finally. She felt emptier with that lost breath, but she could fill that space with something else. With someone else.

 

She took the stairs down the one floor to her own department like she was walking off a sprain, and once she made it back to her own classroom— empty and far too silent for her— she opened the laptop at her second desk and allowed classical music to float through the speakers. The gentle sounds of piano filled the room in a different way than that breath had filled her lungs. Instead of straining, this music brushed against the walls with feathery fingers, soothing instead of pushing.

 

She imagined that she, too, was filled with this much softness so that maybe it wouldn’t hurt this much to breathe.

 

Rick Dicker was a traitor.

 

Helen allowed herself to think that one sentence as fact, no emotions tacked on to it as they wanted to be.

 

They still burned, but less like a hot iron and more like the whiskey she and Evelyn drank.

 

That was a pain she could take.

 

So, she propped her arms atop the tall desk she lectured behind and allowed the music to ease her into calmness until five o’clock.

 

When Riley Sutton entered her classroom, Helen was prepared.

 

The girl was all rounded cheeks and full lips, easily nineteen or twenty years old with a baby face still. Her golden blonde hair danced in a high ponytail as she walked down the shallow steps, backpack slung over one shoulder and gum popping between her teeth. The sound made Helen’s eye twitch, but she said nothing about it.

 

“Riley, how are you?”

 

She came to a slow stop in front of Helen’s desk, brown eyes looking straight into her professor’s like she was ready to accept her fate.

 

“Ready to do whatever I have to so my grade goes back up. I can’t have a C, my dad’ll kill me if I don’t raise it.”

 

Helen hadn’t anticipated the softness to her voice, nor the slight lilt of a New Jersey accent that flattened out her vowels.

 

“I’ll work with you. I don’t want a parent to ever have a reason to hurt my students. Do you two get along well?” Helen asked, reaching forward to tap the volume-down button on her keyboard until the classical music was practically silent.

 

Riley’s eyes followed her hand absently as she considered her question, fingers tugging at the strap of her backpack until it lifted off her shoulder and then lowered back down.

 

“He’s my hero. Taught me everything I know about everything,” she said, a smile overtaking her gentle face. Her eyes sparkled as Helen’s had when she spoke about her own father— a military man who was all rough edges and hard hands, but one who molded her into the hero she became nonetheless.

 

She had to wonder, though...

 

“Is it just the two of you?”

 

Helen watched the young woman nod without remorse, lips pursed a bit as if to say that it was just she and her father, and she had long since accepted it as such. Her hands dropped from the straps of her backpack to reach into the shallow pockets of her skinny jeans.

 

“Yeah and no, my mom skipped out on us when I was, like, three. Non-Super. Dad said she couldn’t handle us… which is fine. We don’t want weakness in the family anyway,” she said flippantly, “but my step-mom is stronger.”

 

An eyebrow raised up toward Helen’s hairline, shocked by the blatant Super-supremacist rhetoric spilling from her acidic tongue. Her first instinct was to fire back in defense of those without special abilities, but she knew that she had to remain neutral in order to keep the girl talking. Detective work was not for the soft of heart, she realized.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t mean to pry if that’s a sensitive topic—“

 

“No, I don’t mind!” Riley waved a single hand in the air as if physically swiping away her professor’s concern.

 

“She taught me there’s a lot in this world you shouldn’t put your trust in. Everyone’s not as resilient as us, and I turned out stronger than ever. I like to share that reminder with our people, if I can.”

 

A sick swirling movement turned Helen’s gut until she felt nauseous, but she tried to keep her expression unchanged and her tone unaffected as she asked, “Our people?”

 

Riley laughed.

 

“C’mon Ms. Truax. You know who I mean. Anyway, what’s pulling my grade down?”

 

And Helen stood there to discuss the slightly falsified issues of this young girl’s grades, smiling and nodding along to their twenty minute conversation on how she could improve her standings as well as communicate any issues to her in the future.

 

All the while she ignored the taste of rage in her mouth, as well as the way it made her tongue swell with harsh words she could never release onto a student.

 

She swallowed her fury whole, and her stomach held it in the same place she held all the rest of her pain over the years. She would learn to carry it comfortably someday.

 

Someday was not now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With school starting again, I thought I would be able to get far enough ahead on this fic that this wouldn't happen, but I have zero time to write like I used to-- so this fic will be on hiatus for a little while (until I can get a jump on it again and have consistent updates). In the meantime, I'll still write one-shots and stuff for your content fix! I just won't be updating this one until further notice.
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this chapter to the lovely people of the fandom who support their content creators and have just genuinely been sweet and caring to everyone around them. Much love to those of you who have supported me and showed me so much love as well. 
> 
> Keep up with me over at Tumblr (bakedgarnet.tumblr.com) I love y'all!


	10. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen has a revealing nightmare, she and Evelyn come together to discuss Blazestone, and love is confronted.

Evelyn picked her up for their double date with Bob and Mirage in her blood red Tesla.

 

How she had been talked into a double date with her ex boyfriend, his wife, and her current lover— Helen Truax had no clue. The air was chilly only in the way that it rushed in through the lowered windows far too quickly, and Helen gripped her arms right across her sternum without complaint.

 

Evelyn’s bright grin in the beaming autumn sun was enough to warm her. She felt herself smiling uncontrollably, gazing upon her the other woman with a large heart and fluttering stomach.

 

“Did you call the florist?” Evelyn asked suddenly, her clear, blue eyes seeming to sparkle in the sunlight that shone through the roof of the car.

 

Helen nodded, reaching over and grabbing Evelyn’s free hand. The other gripped the top of the steering wheel, a diamond ring on her finger reflecting that same light back sharply.

 

“I did. I also called the bakery and the place for the invitations. Everything’s taken care of, Ev. Relax.” Evelyn squeezed her hand back as Helen interlaced her fingers through it, sighing softly and nodding twice.

 

“I know, I know. You’re Elastigirl… nothing is beyond your reach, after all,” Evelyn chuckled, taking her eyes off the road for a short moment to glance at Helen with mirth in her eyes.

 

The wind whipped through the windows and blew auburn strands of hair every which way around Helen’s face, and the goosebumps on her arms reminded her to ask, “Can you roll the windows up?”

 

Evelyn appeared not to hear her, bouncing her head along to a song in the background that she hadn’t noticed before. It’s bass vibrated the car with every beat, and Helen tried to call out again, even shake the hand that she held in her own palm, but Evelyn merely pulled away to put both hands on the wheel.

 

She stared straight ahead in silence, still nodding to the music.

 

“ _Evelyn_!” Helen called out again, but the wind rushing through the windows drowned her out once more, turning her yell into nothing but a whisper.

 

Evelyn turned to look at her anyway, though, and those eyes were no longer gentle blue, but the murky gray of lake water before a storm, and her arms jerked to the side instantly, veering them off the road and sending the car headlong off of a cliff and into the rolling waves manifested by rips of wind. As they descended, Evelyn was opening the car door to jump out and free fall into the tumultuous waters below, and Helen reached out to grab her but just barely missed her shirt by a breath.

 

Before she could scream out again, voice stolen by the rushing wind of their plummet—

 

Helen jerked up out of bed with a sharp cry of, “ _Evelyn_!”

 

The duvet yanked upward with her, snatching the cloth away from Evelyn who was very much _not_ falling to her death. She was curled into a tight ball, but straightened out as she woke suddenly in a haze of sleepy confusion.

 

“Helen?” Evelyn murmured out, the name slurred by the final tendrils unconsciousness turning her loose as she sat up to stare at Helen through bleary eyes. Helen’s heart pounded angrily in her chest, sending her blood rushing in her ears and making her hands shake enough for her to clench them to fists and shove them beneath her thighs.

 

“Sorry— sorry, it was just a dream. I’m okay,” Helen said, much quieter than when she had just been yelling for dream-Evelyn’s falling figure.

 

A gentle arm snaked around her waist, pulling her in close to Evelyn’s side until she was burying her face into the other woman’s slender neck. Helen allowed herself to take a deep breath of composure, releasing it shakily as she pulled her hands from beneath her thighs to wrap her own arms around Evelyn’s waist from the side.

 

“Oh my god,” she whispered, closing her eyes tightly as she allowed her brain and body to catch up to the reality that Evelyn was _safe_ and _here_ in her arms— not diving to her demise off of a cliff and into waters that would swallow her whole and lick its fingers after.

 

“What was it?” Evelyn asked, voice scratchy, and Helen merely shook her head against her neck before taking another deep breath and pressing a long kiss beneath her ear.

 

“Later,” Helen murmured, and Evelyn just tightened her hold around her body, rubbing her thumb up and down a small patch of bare skin on Helen’s lower back. The rushing in Helen’s ears slowly subsided as Evelyn held her, and the next deep breath that she released didn't shake so much.

 

“I got you,” Evelyn rasped lowly. She pulled away from Helen’s embrace in order to turn fully toward her.

 

“Here, let's go back to bed. I’m right here,” she said, laying them both back down until Helen took an unfamiliar position as the little spoon— but if asked, she would admit that the feeling of Evelyn’s warm body behind her, bare breasts pressed comfortably into her back and soft stomach rising and falling against her spine, was easily one of the greatest sensations in the world.

 

Evelyn’s hand was gentle as she brushed her nails, soft as ever, up and down her abdomen in a soothing scratching motion. Her full lips were rested against the space directly between Helen’s shoulders when she said, in a voice that could not have been the product of a fully conscious mind, “Nothing’s gonna happen to you on my watch.”

 

And while Helen could say that it wasn’t herself she had been worried about, the amount of softness that poured out of Evelyn while half-asleep was something that lulled her nerves just as well as if she had never been plagued by the nightmare in the first place.

 

“I know,” Helen whispered back, placing her own hand over Evelyn’s on her stomach and touching the other beneath her pillow comfortably.

 

If asked again, Helen would say that she fell back to sleep and dreamt of nothing— but she simply didn’t remember the dream of one rambunctious child with the wild and curious energy she herself exuded at that age, and a more timid one, equally curious about the world, but so much more hesitant to go out and grab it.

 

She didn’t remember the way that she loved them so fiercely, and loved Evelyn, and their wedding rings, and their adoration of each other and their kids just as much.

 

Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t remember, though, because she needed to keep her head clear around Evelyn Deavor— and it was impossible to do so when the clear image of their dream-children was plaguing Helen’s mind.

* * *

Helen discussed her encounter with Blazestone the next morning, a cloudy Saturday morning that gave way to still, cool air and beaming sunlight that fought its way to their eyes by ten. They had gotten distracted the night before, but Evelyn made them breakfast again and sipped out of a giant mug of coffee while reminding her that she needed to give updates— because Evelyn had some of her own.

 

The uneasy feeling that curled Helen’s gut nearly made her reluctant to eat the spinach and broccoli omelette laid out on a plate before her, but it smelled heavenly, and Evelyn seemed to really enjoy when she ate her cooking, so Helen tucked into it regardless of her nerves.

 

It was a damn good omelette.

 

“She’s close with her dad. I’m assuming he also has a vendetta against non-Supers and she followed his footsteps. It’s not uncommon,” Helen shrugged a bit as she paused to chew her food, “But, apparently, either one or both of them got started in their hatred after the mom left. She wasn’t a Super, and her dad told her that she was too weak to handle them, so, now they have a thing about weeding out the weak that’s…” Helen shook her head slowly and sighed, glancing back up into Evelyn’s absorbing eyes.

 

“Eugenics-y? Yeah, I can see that. Do we know anything about Dan Sutton? And what’s going on with Rachel Sutton? Did he remarry?” Evelyn sat the mug down on the countertop, partially empty, and drummed her fingers wildly on the marble as her mind turned like clockwork. Helen watched the caffeine make its way through her system with slow fascination, practically seeing her rise from her exhausted state of just waking up to going a thousand miles per hour.

 

“How the hell do you remember their names? We looked them up weeks ago,” Helen said, placing the last bite of the omelette between her teeth.

 

“Good memory. I’ve also been working on this the entire time we weren’t really,” she gestured vaguely with her other hand, “talking.”

 

Evelyn cleared her throat.

 

“Anyway, Dan found himself a Super wife and they both pushed money toward Rick Dicker to keep their daughter’s pyromaniac tendencies toward non-Supers under wraps. That sound right?” Evelyn asked, wide eyes squinting as she looked to Helen for confirmation or denial.

 

The Super nodded, and Evelyn was speaking again before Helen had even taken a breath. She rose to her feet suddenly, briskly making her way to her laptop in the living room before bringing it back into the kitchen.

 

She opened it up and typed furiously against the keys, making Helen wonder just how much caffeine was in her coffee, and how the hell she learned to type so fast.

 

“There were six unsolved arsons in the city within the past two years. Four of them happened almost back to back, so it seems like, if it is her, she’s getting bolder. I wanna find which most recent one got paid off so we can see who lived there— they probably know a lot more than we do.”

 

“When do you wanna go?” Helen asked. She watched the cool and focused chill behind Evelyn’s eyes and knew that she had a plan— if if she didn’t, then she was already three steps into one. While Elastigirl was good on her feet, quick and clever thinking being a large reason for why she was so effective, she enjoyed Evelyn’s complex brain. Following anyone’s lead when it came to hero work was hardly her strong suit, but when Evelyn was taking the head, well, Helen had no qualms about dropping the reins.

 

“We’ll lay out the actual plan throughout the day, but I don’t want to go by on a weekend— Monday looks like our best bet,” Evelyn said, leaning forward on the counter and watching Helen with eyes that flickered all over her face like they were taking in every single snapshot and tucking them away for later.

 

Helen walked around the counter and stood right beside the other woman’s hunched form, but upon her moving, Evelyn stood to her full height— eye level with Helen’s chin— and looked up at her with a softness to her demeanor that spoke to the fleshy underbelly she was now willing to show. This was not the hardened body Helen had been taken by against every surface of the house, this was the gentle kiss that had shattered every sense of ‘friends with benefits’ they’d had. This was the softness of the morning sun on a green lawn, and of those tiny feet running and equally tiny hands grabbing at the bottom of her pants for attention. Helen was addicted to the cold and calculating version of the woman before her, but the warm and pliable version she looked at now made her _melt_.

 

Helen swallowed inconspicuously as she looked down at Evelyn when she realized that the shorter woman was waiting for her to make the first move. Helen reached up and cupped her jaw within a single palm, brushing her thumb up over her chin to rest on that full bottom lip and press ever so gently.

 

She dragged it down a bit, barely exposing a row of straight white teeth before moving the digit away and leaning forward to press their lips together. There was no urgency, no fire, merely the languid caress of mouths that left them both breathless and wanting for more.

 

Except, Helen knew that they had more business to attend to. She simply couldn’t resist the sudden urge she’d gotten to be _closer_.

 

“What was your news ?” Helen asked, pulling away enough that Evelyn blinked dazedly and valiantly tried to pull on the caffeine in her system to allow her to refocus.

 

“Right, right— um, your guy, Rick Dicker? He was at my meeting yesterday.”

 

Helen’s brows shot upward, and her heart hammered a bit harder in her chest at the surprise. She looked intensely down into blue eyes and tried to read Evelyn’s expression for some hint as to how bad or good that news was.

 

“Why? He shouldn’t have any foot in the technology department.”

 

Evelyn shrugged, reaching up and grabbing Helen’s hand that had dropped from her face and landed at her collarbone in order to link their fingers together.

 

“Well, he usually wouldn’t. Said he wanted to sit in, but not participate. That’s not even the weird part though— he asked me to stay behind after the meeting so that he could talk to me,” Evelyn’s voice dropped conspiratorially, “and then asked if I wanted to join the new NSA. I looked it up and it originally stood for—“

 

“National Supers Agency,” Helen supplied, sighing heavily and dropping her head down until her forehead rested atop Evelyn’s with exasperation “There shouldn’t be a _new_ NSA, the original is still running. It placed us and assigned us missions, made teams and stuff like that. Unless…”

 

She trailed off, searching Evelyn’s eyes for what she could possibly reveal next that would justify the pit in her stomach.

 

“Oh yeah? Apparently, there’s a new sub division of the NSA. This time it stands for Non-Super Alliance.”

 

Helen felt her hand tense around Evelyn’s, brows drawing down over her eyes as she stared intently into the blue ones in front of her. She waited impatiently for further information, feeling her heart thrum behind her ribcage even quicker than before.

 

“ _And_?” She prodded after Evelyn failed to reveal anything else, the suspense clawing up her stomach with sharp talons.

 

“And… it’s some sort of hero-worship den for non-Supers. The way he talked about it sounded kind of… cult-y. I didn’t give him an answer because I wanted to consult with you about whether or not I should use this to get more information. He said I didn’t have to decide right away, and could come find him when I made my decision.” Evelyn’s eyes roved all over the kitchen as she spoke, seeming to replay the scene right around her as she relayed the story to Helen.

 

Helen used her free hand to steady herself on the edge of the island counter, blinking several times and dropping her gaze down to the tiled floor as she processed that information.

 

“That’s why he took the pay-off from Riley Sutton’s parents,” she realized slowly, “If he has some kind of weird… hero-worship for Supers, enough to put them over those without powers like himself, it makes sense that he would cover up that arson. Especially if her parent’s paid him money to do it. He feels… indebted somehow? But _why_?” Helen worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she squinted at the floor and tried to make sense of it all to no avail.

 

Rick Dicker had been a reliable member of the original NSA. He was monotone and a bit dull at times, sure, but he was an honest man who took his job seriously. Salivating over Supers just enough to betray everything he had stood for simply didn’t sit right with Helen. She tried not to let the fact that he had been a father figure to her influence the disappointment that leaked through her body.

 

Evelyn tugged at her hand gently to regain her attention and sent a sad smile her way.

 

“Hey,” she began, “I’m sorry he’s not who you thought he was.”

 

The last thing Helen had been expecting from her was an apology, especially after Evelyn had made it clear that she couldn’t stand Rick Dicker if her life depended on it, but it was more than appreciated. Helen nodded thrice, feeling the sadness like an extra weight in her bones as she dropped her head down onto Evelyn’s shoulder and shut her eyes.

 

“What the hell is going on, Ev?” Helen sighed, comforting herself in the warmth of her body.

 

“I don’t know. I really wish I did… but we’ll figure it out together, I promise.”

 

And Helen believed her. If she didn’t believe anything or anyone else in that moment, she believed Evelyn.

* * *

“How are you?”

 

Evelyn looked up at her from where she was lounging atop her body and quirked a neatly arched eyebrow. They had been laying in mutual silence for nearly an hour, allowing the darkness of Helen’s bedroom to swallow them whole. Perhaps that way they could finally escape whatever convoluted madness that was unfolding before their very eyes outside those four walls.

 

To avoid thinking about her own swirly and turbulent thoughts, she asked Evelyn.

 

“I’m fine,” She responded shortly, pressing her cheek back down to the bony middle between Helen’s breasts.

 

“I should be asking about you. You had a nightmare last night,” she prompted.

 

Helen sighed deeply and stared up at the white ceiling made pale blue by the obsidian of the room mixed with the gentle strokes of moonlight peeking through the curtains. She got flashbacks of the dream that she had tried to forget all day. The glint of Evelyn’s engagement ring, the look in her eyes as she jerked the wheel to the side and veered them off of the road.

 

The piercing horror of trying to grab Evelyn before she plummeted into vicious and unforgiving waters and missing by a breath.

 

Her next inhale shook in her chest, and Evelyn lifted her head to glance at her with deep concern clouding her gaze. Helen could only glance at her before shooting her eyes back up, unable to see her face without recalling that intense sadness of a dream self’s failure.

 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Helen whispered, and didn’t even recognize the morose nature of her own voice. She didn’t want to think about what these feelings elicited by a dream meant for her feelings of reality. She and Evelyn were just getting back on reasonable terms, and the last thing that she wanted was to deal with the possibility of acting on there being hope for a love Evelyn had promised her when they were both drunk.

 

Nothing made love so clear as when faced with the possibility of losing it. She supposed she ought to have been grateful that she had nearly lost it while dreaming, and not in waking life.

 

“Alright, well… If you’re going to keep having them, I guess I should let you know something,” Evelyn began slowly, still staring down Helen’s torso up at her face even though she was looking at the ceiling still.

 

“What?” Helen asked warily.

 

“I think I like being the big spoon. Just a little, though, don’t get your hopes up.”

 

Helen looked down with a surprised smile of amusement on her lips, finding herself taking in every striking feature of Evelyn’s face while she watched her with hushed laughter bubbling to the surface.

 

“While I did sleep well being the little spoon, I don’t think I could make a habit of it, anyway. Don’t worry.” Helen was happy to be smiling after all of the tumultuous realizations of the day, and looking at Evelyn and her content grin as she laid atop her body calmed her in a way that nothing else could.

 

"Good," she murmured sleepily, relaxing down on top of Helen's body entirely and fluttering her eyes closed. Helen reached one hand up to trace gentle lines up and down the ridges of her spine, and leaned up just a bit to press her lips to the top of her head. 

 

"Good night, Ev."

 

"G'night," she mumbled.

 

Helen may not have wanted to admit that it was love filling her chest with something so full that it threatened to explode, but damn her if she didn't know that's exactly what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS! My gift to you all is an update. I have to be honest, I couldn't update this fic before because I maybe misplaced my notes on where my carefully thought out plot was supposed to go and didn't want to risk a massive hole by writing through it anyway, but I found them! If you're still here and reading, thank you endlessly, you are appreciated more than you know.
> 
> As always, find me on bakedgarnet.tumblr.com, but i have a twitter now too: @bakedgarnet!
> 
> Much love to you all, and hopefully this update is a pleasant surprise or a welcome reprieve from families (I know it can be rough around holiday season). Be safe, and happy new year!


	11. Karen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen and Evelyn meet the victims of the most recent arson, and discover someone special.

Helen crunched through fallen orange and red leaves as she made her way up the concrete pathway of the single story home with Evelyn at her side. The driveway was occupied by a single worn car with a dent in its passenger seat door, a series of white scratches that highlighted the imperfection. The wind was relatively chilly, though it was infrequent enough that it hardly mattered.

 

She watched Evelyn pull her long coat about her body from the corner of her eye, and willed herself to focus on the white painted door in front of her. She needed to be prepared for this interaction. Putting herself in their shoes, something Helen was always empathetic enough to do, she could understand why two strangers asking about the covered up arson of their family’s home could be upsetting.

 

Her hands clenched and unclenched inside of her coat’s pockets, nerves eating away at her gut until she felt slightly nauseated. This was no different than any hero work she had done in the past, and surely leagues less dangerous, but something tugged at her anyway.

 

Perhaps it was the act of pulling the veil back even further from whatever convoluted mess had been going on under her nose for all of this time. It was as if everything she had ever known had been a lie, or a half truth at best. People she thought she could trust with her life were suddenly snakes in the grass, baring their fangs just as she had been lured into a false sense of security.

 

“Hey, you alright?” Evelyn asked. They had long since reached the front porch, but neither of them made a move to ring the doorbell.

 

There was a sheet of lined paper taped to the inside of the screen door, directing visitors or postmen to ring the bottom doorbell instead of the top one.

 

Helen had to wonder who lived inside, and couldn’t help but allow her mind to travel to who exactly almost didn’t survive.

 

The guilt for a crime she hadn’t even committed made her stomach turn violently, and she swallowed everything back in order to regain her head.

 

“We need to stay level headed and considerate, okay? This won’t take long.”

 

Evelyn was eyeing her warily as she reached up to ring the plain white doorbell. The wires were exposed out of the sides, winding up the exposed brick until they disappeared inside of a drilled hole.

 

“Are you telling me, or yourself?” Evelyn asked after the muffled sound of the bell ringing inside came through the closed front door.

 

“Both,” she sighed.

 

When the door swung open, they were confronted by the exhausted face of a stranger. She had long, black hair that dropped pin-straight down to her mid back, and tan skin. The lines around her eyes were from a lack of sleep, or stress, or both. She looked like she had seen into the mouth of her greatest fear and lived to suffer because of it.

 

“...Hello, can I help you two?” Her voice was higher than Helen had anticipated, and she imagined that this woman had been jovial and full of bright words and light before the attack.

 

A sudden gust of wind pushed through behind them, and the older woman shivered just barely enough for Helen to notice. They needed to speed this up. Whether it was for the other woman’s comfort or her own, Helen was unsure.

 

“Hi, we’re here to ask you a few questions about your home, or more specifically, the arson you and your family were victims of,” Helen said gently, carefully searching the other woman’s face as she spoke to check for signs of upsetting her in any way. She hadn’t realized that the muscles in her back and shoulders were bunched until she felt Evelyn’s hand slip inconspicuously onto the dip of her lower waist. She relaxed minimally, thankful for the steady fixture of support beside her.

 

The woman standing inside of the doorway sighed heavily, her entire body drooping even lower than it had been before. She dipped her head downward, a curtain of black hair shielding her expression for a moment before she looked back up with tired, brown eyes. She studied them for a long while before taking a step backward and opening the door wide for them to enter.

 

“What are you two, reporters?” She asked quietly, shutting the door behind them all and leaning her back up against it. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, holding onto her sides as her shoulders pressed up around her neck.

 

“More like concerned civilians,” Evelyn interjected quietly. It seemed as if it had meant to be a personal thought to herself, but in the silence of the house she may as well have said it at normal volume.

 

“We aren’t reporters. We’re both professors at the university just… trying to do our due diligence if the law won’t.”

 

The woman looked at Helen as she spoke with squinted eyes before pushing off of the door and calling out, “Maya, can you come down here?”

 

Helen and Evelyn both turned their attention to footsteps on the stairs, eyeing the trail of family photos lined up on the wall to parallel the railing on the opposite bannister. A tall, slender woman with a gentle face and short, blonde hair appeared slowly with a look of concern darkening her features.

 

“What is this,” she asked, turning her eyes onto the woman who answered the door.

 

“They’re here about the arson. You were the only one who was home, well, aside from Karen.”

 

The blonde finished making her way down the steps and into the small living room. With only a few strides she was standing partially in front and to the side of her companion, a protective air around her that perplexed Helen. Her eyes snapped down to their hands, and she felt her eyebrows raise just slightly at the sight of wedding rings on both of their fingers.

 

Evelyn was a shadow beside her, sticking to the background as she tended to do best. She felt the warmth of Evelyn’s arm brushed up against hers in their close proximity, mostly because there were few places for her to wander off to in the tiny space.

 

“What did you say your names were,” Maya asked, a hardness around her eyes that intimidated Helen just enough to make her more tense than she was before.

 

“We didn’t,” Evelyn spoke up, taking a step forward until she was just barely in front of Helen. The boldness of the action did not escape her, and she tried to blink away the surprise and stow away her questions for a more appropriate time.

 

Helen reached out past Evelyn’s shoulder with an apologetic smile to extend her hand to the two women.

 

“I’m Helen Truax, and this is Dr. Evelyn Deavor. We work at the university, and we’re not here for any trouble. We just want to help.” She tried to project as much sincerity into her voice as possible, pleading for them to understand that they were not there to re-open any old wounds. As much as Helen had longed for her own family lately, she could never put herself through the trauma of having her household threatened. She was used to putting her own life in danger to save others, but even the thought of having her family attacked and not being there to help them made her nauseous.

 

Maya eyed her hand warily and left it hanging for long enough that her wife reached out and grasped it instead. She shook it once, her hand calloused, but warm, and let go.

 

“I’m Sophia. Pleasure to meet you,” she gave them both a shy smile, assuming her position slightly behind the blonde. “This is my wife, Maya.”

 

“So, you both work at the university. You’re Supers, then,” Maya stated with her head cocked slightly to the side. The steel of her gaze was distrusting, and Helen wracked her brain for whether or not it was possible for her to know that the arson was the work of a Super. Would that information have been given, or was she simply guessing?

 

“Not necessarily. They integrated the school this year, surely you’ve heard.” Helen responded neutrally.

 

“Hm,” Maya laughed a breath through her nose, “I certainly did hear about the _Supers Only_ phrase burned onto your quad.” Sophia turned a warning look up at her that went ignored simply because Maya never even glanced over.

 

“That’s what we’re here about, actually—” Helen tried to say.

  
“I thought you were here about our house nearly being burned to rubble?” Maya shot back.

 

“Maya, _please_ ,” Sophia urged seriously, making the other woman deflate a bit and drop her intense gaze from Helen’s until it found a sudden interest in the carpeted floor. When Helen followed her eyes, she saw scorch marks here and there that she hadn't noticed before. Frowning as she took in the rest of the room, she noted the subtle signs of damage that had clearly been cleaned as best as they could have been without an entire renovation.

 

“Listen, we’re here because we think we know who’s behind your house being attacked, and we also know that the police aren’t going to give you the justice you deserve,” Evelyn spoke up, visibly annoyed by the lack of direction things were taking.

 

“So if you want resolution, or any sort of justice for _this_ ,” Evelyn gestured largely around the room to indicate the entire house and the tragedy that befell it, “I’d suggest you tell us everything that you know, or remember, so that we can _help you_.”

 

The room was silent for a long while, Maya staring angrily at the floor, and Sophia heaving another great sigh. She gestured toward the plastic-covered couch, some of it blackened around the sides until a hole had melted through and charred the fabric beneath. Helen moved first, sitting down carefully before Evelyn followed suit. She sat close enough that their thighs touched, and Helen took comfort in the physical contact.

 

Maya and Sophia stood still on the opposite end of the coffee table, shoulder to shoulder. Maya was taller than her wife by a head, and her brown eyes glinted even in the dimness of the room. The only light that entered was filtered through the partially opened curtains. The angle threw a splash of sunlight across their clothes and arms.

 

“It’s been a month,” Maya began after a long and uncomfortable stretch of silence. She seemed to be having a rough time getting the words out, unable to make eye contact with anyone in the room as she spoke.

 

“I was here with my step-daughter, Karen. Soph was at work, she works the night shift at the hospital.” As she said that, her arm absently reached around Sophia’s waist and pulled her closer into her side. Helen watched them interact with a strange fluttering in her gut. The urge to reach out and rest her hand on Evelyn’s thigh was prodding at the back of her thoughts so much that she needed to remind herself to focus.

 

“Karen fell asleep on the couch, I was upstairs winding down from work. I was going to take a shower,” Maya sighed forlornly, shaking her head, “The fire alarm didn’t even get a chance to go off.”

 

Her voice began to weaken, shaking, but she seemed determined to continue without breaking down. Her short hair flopped down over her eyes as she stared hard at the ground, jaw visibly clenching and unclenching with the way the muscle to the side of her mouth tensed and untensed.

 

“I heard the windows shatter first, and then Karen screamed. Next thing I knew, she was upstairs with me…” Confusion twisted her tone upward, and she looked up at Helen and Evelyn as if either of them could explain something that she clearly still couldn’t make sense of herself.

 

“And the smoke travelled… far too fast for a normal fire. It was like mini bursts of explosions. Even the police couldn’t discover an origin. There are forensic people who study the way fires spread, you know that? There’s a science to it, and they said this one was an anomaly. There was no evidence that it came from inside or outside of the house. They didn’t have a perpetrator to look for… and eventually they moved on all together. A cold case. Apparently, even with all the fucking Supers in this city to take care of crime, the police are still too busy to do their jobs.” Bitterness leaked into her tone like a strike, her upper lip curling up at Helen and Evelyn as if they were personally responsible. Helen leaned back with the force of the glare burning her gaze, and Evelyn nudged her leg with her knee.

 

She was grateful for the sign of support.

 

“We had to spend the little bit we did have of Karen’s college fund on repairing the damage because for some reason, even the insurance company wouldn’t cooperate,” Sophia interjected sadly, reaching up to hold onto Maya’s arm.

 

Helen saw Evelyn turn to look at her knowingly out of her peripherals, and knew in her gut that the corruption of the law ran deeper than they had initially thought.

 

Clearing her throat in the stifling emotions of the room, Helen asked, “And where is Karen now?”

 

“Right here,” a small voice said from the top of the stairway. The two women standing in front of their guests whipped their heads around at the sound, twin looks of shock on both of their faces.

 

A flash of soft-colored blue hair peaked out from the top of the stairway as a body leaned down to peer through the banister railing. Helen appraised the tan teenager with wide eyes, not expecting an addition to her and Evelyn’s present company. The girl was tall, and probably lanky beneath her oversized green sweater. She slunked down the staircase slowly, purposefully avoiding Sophia and Maya’s gaze as if she knew she was supposed to stay upstairs.

 

“I overheard you saying you’re both professors at the university,” she said hopefully. Karen’s storm blue eyes were trained on the two of them, wide and searching. Her thin fingers curled around the bottom of the railing as she walked past it and further into the living room, lingering on the wood before releasing it altogether.

 

“We are,” Helen nodded, flicking her eyes over to the women of the house and taking in Sophia’s look of indecision paired with Maya’s look of disapproval. When she looked back toward the teen, the young girl’s face had brightened.

 

“I’ve always wanted to go there,” she sighed forlornly, a sad smile quirking her thin lips.

 

“Are you… gifted?” Helen asked, throwing her gaze back to Evelyn’s hyper-focused face before quickly returning it to her person of interest.

 

“ _Don’t_ answer that, Karen!” Maya snapped, jolting the teen from her look of awe into one of shame.

 

It was all the confirmation Helen needed.

 

“I know your college fund for her is strained right now… but whether she’s gifted or not, she’s welcome at the university,” Helen said to Maya and Sophia this time. “If she wants, between the both of us, I’m sure we can make something work financially.” She saw Evelyn nod in agreement out of her peripherals and felt something warm in her chest.

 

“Why would you do that for us?” Sophia asked, genuinely curious.

 

“It’s time to make some wrong things right,” Evelyn finally spoke for the first time in a while. One hand on Helen’s knee left a red-hot phantom imprint behind.

 

“Hold on, what were you saying before? About knowing who attacked us?” Maya implored suddenly.

 

“We said we might have a lead. We came here to get some clarification, but we aren’t going to name anyone until we’re sure,” Helen said, holding her gaze steadily, “But when we _do_ know, you’ll be the first to find out.”

 

And Maya may not have trusted a single cell in their bodies, but the look of hope on Karen’s face, and the quiet smile of relief on Sophia’s were all that Helen needed.

* * *

Evelyn stopped by her office late Tuesday evening. Helen was hard at work putting together study guides for midterms and tweaking lesson plans for the end of the semester. Wireless headphones trickled classical music into her ears as she worked seamlessly through her self-assigned tasks. This time, her music was low enough that when Evelyn peeked her head in, knocking on the door twice, she noticed.

 

Sitting up straight from where she had been bent over her laptop, she removed one headphone and sat the small bud onto a nearby stack of papers. The music paused automatically.

 

“Hey,” she smiled, “what are you still doing here?” She could hear how tired her voice sounded, and wondered how long she had been working. A quick glance at the clock on her laptop said she had been going for three hours straight.

 

Helen leaned back in her desk chair and stretched her arms over her head. Her limbs extended past their resting length and brushed up against the ceiling before retracting back.

 

Evelyn was watching her with an amused glint in her eyes when she faced forward again.

 

“I was thinking about what Dicker said last week… and I should take him up on the offer to get more intel.”

 

Helen blinked at her twice, having forgotten about their conversation about this exact topic in the midst of all the other things that were piled up in her life. The thought of Evelyn getting near anything with the potential of hurting her for the sake of whatever detective’s game they were playing at made her stomach curl.

 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said seriously.

 

Evelyn stepped further into her office and shut the door behind herself. When she leaned down to brace her hands on the opposite end of Helen’s desk, her memory was yanked back to the day that they decided to fall into bed together. A shiver ran up her spine.

 

“Why is that?”

 

“Because I don’t trust Dicker anymore, and if anything happened to you doing reconnaissance I’d never—“ Helen stopped herself before she got too worked up, taking a deep breath, “I think we’re biting off more than we can chew. That’s all.”

 

“Aren’t you Elastigirl? You’ve thrown yourself in front of trains, _literally_ , but a bit of corruption is where you draw the line? Bullshit. What’s the real reason?” Evelyn stepped around her desk until she was right beside Helen’s arm rest. Her perfume was intoxicating, and Helen fought the urge to wilt underneath her towering form.

 

“Because I won’t be able to protect you, if you go.” Helen looked up into her eyes, pleading for her to understand. She heard how weak her own voice sounded, and hated herself for the way that Evelyn was able to crumple her without even trying. She had been on her own for so long that having someone hold her heart between their fingers was like having a knife to her throat.

 

Evelyn had always been turbulent, liable to do whatever she pleased at a moment’s notice for her own reasons, and Helen was beginning to regret allowing her the power to take them both down if she crashed.

 

Evelyn’s tired eyes dug into hers for a long while, flicking back and forth as that endless ocean of knowledge in her brain ebbed and flowed until it washed up a conclusion. Brow furrowing, she lifted her fingers to cup Helen’s chin and leaned down so slowly that everything around them froze. When her lips were a breath away from Helen’s, Evelyn murmured, “Okay. Fine, I won’t go.”

 

She sealed off the statement with a slow kiss to her lips, pressing insistently against Helen’s mouth with her own until they were both taking in shaky breaths through their noses.

 

“Thank you,” Helen breathed in relief when they broke away.

 

Evelyn’s eyes were still closed, and her forehead rested against Helen’s when she replied, “But now you’re in charge of figuring out what he’s hiding instead.”

 

Twisting her hand up into Evelyn’s short tresses from the back of her neck to the center of her scalp, Helen found herself smiling regardless.

 

“I can live with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, loves! Thanks for reading and I hope each of you start this year off in a way that makes you and your future self happy.


	12. Making A Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn figures out a plan to investigate Rick Dicker that somehow involves Mirage, much to Helen's chagrin. Helen and Evelyn come back together in a way that they haven't in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: The second half of this chapter is rated E :)

The student-run cafe offered a pleasant buzz of background noise to Helen and Evelyn’s brainstorming. Well, Helen was left to brainstorm. Evelyn’s legs were crossed in one of the cafe’s slightly uneven wooden chairs, her fingers typing out work related emails with a furious clacking that was beginning to grate on Helen’s ears. Their mugs of coffee and tea were still steaming, and Helen curled her fist beneath her chin as she gazed out into the overcast fall day.

  
  
She was responsible for figuring out an alternate plan, and she couldn’t admit to herself just yet that Evelyn had been onto something the other day when she wanted to bait Dicker into revealing his affiliation to her. It was a solid plan, Helen could admit that freely, but the idea of allowing Evelyn too close to a man who she no longer trusted was not one that she could get behind.   
  


And so she took on the weight of coming up with an alternative idea, no matter how much stress was straining her nerves. One wrong move, or one consideration not made, and she had no clue who could get hurt in the backlash. She watched a stream of cars outside of the window halt at a red light, each driver and passenger completely oblivious to an entire world of things going on beneath their noses.  
  


Her limbs felt heavy, and it was getting harder and harder for her to remain detached as she considered what their next steps would be. Her empathy was in overdrive, and generally she was good at looking past that to get to the heart and logic of an issue, but the longer that she had spent with Evelyn, the more she was having trouble.  
  


The light turned green, and her eyes followed the resurging stream of cars one by one until they disappeared out of her line of sight. Her shoulders heaved with an unintended sigh, and she drew Evelyn’s gaze up from across the table. Her hand had just wrapped around the handle of her coffee mug, holding it to her lips before Helen had made a noise.  
  


“Everything alright, Hel?”  
  


Helen jerked her attention to Evelyn’s concerned eyes and nodded with a pursed smile. Her chest felt tight, and her shoulders were sinking with the weight of all of the things revealing their sinister natures around her.  
  


“You’re a shit liar, you know that?”  
  


Helen breathed out a laugh and dropped both of her hands onto the table, giving Evelyn a sheepish look. “I’m sorry,” she sighed, “there’s just… so much happening right now. I feel like... for being the world’s most flexible woman, I’m getting torn apart by all of this more than I should be.”  
  


Evelyn’s face softened a bit, taking a slow sip from her coffee mug before setting it back down on the table. She kept both of her hands cupped around it, twisting her lips to the side as she seemed to think carefully about what to say next.  
  


“If we’re being honest, if you weren’t torn up by it all, I’d be worried,” she started. “In fact, I’m shocked you’re still so willing to dig even further into all of this…” Evelyn lifted her hands from the cup to make a vague swirling gesture with them both, “shit.”  
  


Helen swallowed, nodding solemnly.  
  


“It’s hard to see all the people hurt by something that was happening right in front of you, and you didn’t know. And if you need some time away from this—” Evelyn began to offer.  
  


“No, no. I can handle this, I just,” she sighed again, “I just can’t stop thinking about my own judgement if I never suspected anything to be off about Rick. Part of me wants to still believe that there’s some justifiable explanation, you know? When I know there isn’t one. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, Ev. He was a good guy.” Helen felt her voice weaken, and she clenched her jaw against the onslaught of emotions that rose up within her chest. Her eyes blinked rapidly against the prickling behind them, and she turned to look out of the window again until she was sure that her emotions were in check.  
  


“They all were, once,” Evelyn murmured around a sympathetic half-smile.  
  


The conversation died off briefly after that, an alert for a new email stealing away Evelyn’s attention while Helen resumed her people watching through the window. Her finger absently traced lines into the table with her nail, and she couldn’t quite focus on any one thing outside.   
  


“Look who’s spending time together again,” a familiar, deep voice rumbled from above. Helen jerked violently out of her stupor, and stared up into Bob’s charmingly boyish grin. Evelyn had less of a reaction, simply freezing for a moment before shaking her head and flicking her eyes up at their new addition.   
  


Mirage stepped up from behind him, both of her hands curled around his muscular arm and still not fitting around the limb. Her smile was apologetic, clearly having seen the start he had given them.  
  


“Hi, you two. Good to see you in each other’s company again.”  
  


Evelyn turned a quirked eyebrow up at Helen, asking a silent question of just how much these two knew of their relationship, and Helen turned away quickly before she was able to wither beneath the accusation in her eyes.  
  


“Bob, Mirage, so great to see the both of you,” Helen smiled up at them, squinting her eyes in obvious disapproval at Bob in particular, who knew that he should have never mentioned her and Evelyn’s falling out.  
  


“What? We started having lunch together instead, it was safe to assume that something had happened.” Bob played coy. He almost sounded sincere.  
  


Evelyn let out a little puff of breath from her nose into her coffee mug as she brought the rim to her lips.  
  


“Anyway, is this a lunch date?” Helen asked, looking between the two of them. The heat dragging itself up her neck and cheeks drove her to take the attention off of her rollercoaster of a relationship, or lack thereof.   
  


“Yes it is, Bobby and I were going to grab something to go and take a walk around Urbem Square. We didn’t mean to keep you, just wanted to say hello.” Mirage was graceful with spearheading their exit, and Helen shot her a grateful smile that Bob rolled his eyes toward the ceiling at.   
  


“Have a good one!” Helen called out as Mirage began pulling Bob back toward the counter to make their purchases. He left with her reluctantly, mischief still sparkling in his blue-eyed gaze. Evelyn waved halfheartedly after them, a mere flick of her wrist and fingers, and turned a sharp glare on Helen as soon as they were out of ear-shot.  
  


“Are you fucking kidding me? Weren’t you the one afraid of losing your job if we weren’t careful?”  
  


Helen sighed so deeply that her shoulders slumped, and she pressed her forehead into her palm while her eyes squeezed shut against a looming headache. “Can we not do this right now?”  
  


“You know how I feel about strangers in my business,” Evelyn grumbled, fingers flying over her keyboard as she pointedly avoided Helen’s gaze by pretending to be otherwise occupied. The lack of eye contact made Helen clench her fists atop the table.  
  


“Who else was I supposed to talk to when you disappeared on me?” Helen shot back angrily, voice low enough not to draw attention, but laced with enough venom to pull Evelyn’s gaze back up to her.  
  


She said nothing for a long moment, merely glaring at Helen for a handful of moments before she slowly deflated. Her sharp jaw worked from side to side, eyes wandering from Helen’s to rest somewhere to the right of them and on the floor. Evelyn was the picture of reluctant guilt eating away at her pride.  
  


They hadn’t spoken much about the rift between them since that night in Helen’s home, a bottle of whiskey deep into their emotions. There was an unspoken agreement to leave it in the past, but it nipped at their heels, still, no matter which direction they went. Evelyn had been obvious in her attempts to open up more, getting all comforting and protective at the residence of Maya and Sophia being the most recent example. Helen appreciated her attempts, but the underlying tension still existed like a sour aftertaste to every one of their interactions.  
  


“You made a choice, remember?”  
  


Helen let out a disbelieving laugh, pressing the heels of her hands into her closed eyes and beating back the urge to scream with a stick.  
  


“As soon as I think you’ve changed…”  
  


“Give me a break, Hel, I apologized. We did the hard part. I’m just clarifying that I never abandoned you, you just chose sex over friendship.” The matter of fact tone to her voice was only more grating with the core knowledge that she wasn’t wrong. 

  
That didn’t make her right, either.  
  


The look that Helen was giving her must have struck something at the core of her companion because as soon as Evelyn had finished speaking, she put her hands up, palms out, in surrender.   
  


“Can we just— can we not do this right now? Can we go back to something that’s actually important, like how the hell I’m supposed to get Dicker to trust me with his secret society, cult… whatever?” Helen suggested, exhaustion coating every word in exasperation.  
  


“Trust you? That’s your big plan, the exact thing I came up with except you’re going instead?” Evelyn tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing to scrutinizing slits that immediately put Helen on the defensive.  
  


“It’s safer than you going in by yourself,” Helen countered.  
  


“But he wouldn’t tell you a damn th— wait.” Evelyn’s hand shot out and landed on top of hers without thinking. Her typically hazy eyes were wide open, scanning the open air as if she could see whatever plan was unfolding right before her eyes.

  
“What?” Helen asked warily. She put forth a good effort, trying to ignore the subtle chill of Evelyn’s fingers just barely gripping hers. She considered moving away, still stung from her earlier words, but enjoyed the contact too much to follow through.  
  


“Alright, I have an idea,” Evelyn began. Her eyes locked onto Helen’s finally, and the icy blues of them were alight with what she assumed was the excitement of putting all of the pieces together just right. “You won’t let me go, I highly doubt that Dicker would let you in on his weird Non-Super Alliance,” her voice lowered as she spoke the name.   
  


Helen looked back and forth between her eyes as she spoke with rapt attention, a feeling deep within her gut sending warning signals throughout every bone. Evelyn’s hand was slowly warming on top of hers.  
  


“He knows Bob. How about we get his wife to do it?” Evelyn asked with a small shrug of her shoulders. She pulled her hand from Helen’s and sat back into her wooden chair with self-satisfaction turning one corner of her lips up. Her arms crossed over her chest, and the smugness was almost endearing if Helen hadn’t hated everything that had come from her mouth.  
  


“Absolutely not.”  
  


“We aren’t ever going to get anything done if you keep trying to protect everyone,” Evelyn lifted one of her hands to press her middle finger and thumb to either side of the bridge of her nose.  
  


“I can’t ask that of her,” Helen tried to explain, “how did you even know she’s not a Super?”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Evelyn shrugged, dropping that same hand back down until it danced through the air as she spoke. 

  
“She doesn’t work at the school despite you and her husband working there, and that means she’s either not a Super or that she is and her identity’s safe. Unless Dicker worked with her in the past and knows her civilian name and face, which I doubt, especially because you just confirmed that she isn’t a Super anyway.” Evelyn studied Helen expectantly, perhaps waiting for her plan to be shut down even though it was obvious that she felt it was the best solution.   
  


To say that Helen didn’t like the plan was an understatement. She would feel awful asking Mirage to do something like this for them, dragging her into harm’s way if there was any. She wasn’t sure about how Bob would react to her request. She was still so shaken by Dicker’s potential nefariousness that taking any step at all seemed like a suicide mission— and she knew that she was being dramatic.   
  


Evelyn was right about one thing for sure. She couldn’t keep to the walls and hope that everything would fall into place on their own. She couldn’t play scared.   
  


She wished that Evelyn’s confidence was her own more often than not.  
  


* * *

  
Helen knew that she should have gone home after work. She missed her bed, and more importantly, she needed time to clear her mind of the shipwreck of emotions Evelyn tended to elicit in her every hour that they spent together. She missed the therapy of deep cleaning her home in solitude, classical music brushing through the air around her. She missed making herself dinner and sinking onto her living room couch to eat it in front of her television, catching up on her favorite shows.   
  


She knew all of this, and yet, when Evelyn knocked on her office door to ask if she wanted to come by that night, she said yes anyway.  
  


She didn’t want to think about why. If she did, then something would escape that she wasn’t sure how to put back. Whatever it was, she was positive would break her.   
  


Trailing behind Evelyn’s far too expensive car to her far too expensive house, she stared hard at the tail lights in front of her. The red eyes of them blinked at her every time Evelyn’s foot hit the breaks, and she thought about her whiskey-soaked apologies those few nights ago.  
  


_You have to stop forgiving me for hurting you_ , she had said.  
  


Then what else was she supposed to do? Stay away from her except for working on the convoluted web of deceit at the university?  
  


Staying away from her would break Helen more than searching internally for the reason why she willingly stuck her head into the shark mouth that was Evelyn Deavor.  
  


The crimson eyes of Evelyn’s car closed again as she put her foot back on the gas to proceed through the now green light. Helen gripped the steering wheel with all of the strength that she wanted to grab herself up with sometimes and followed after her. It was a shame how she couldn’t shake herself until she saw reason.   
  


It wasn’t that Evelyn wasn’t trying to be better to her. She was a deeply scarred woman whose closest connection to her own emotions was only found at the bottom of a wine bottle. Helen had not known the extent of that going in, but she knew now. She told herself that meant she was prepared.  
  


The long period of time she spent as Evelyn’s sexual object did not escape her psyche, though, but it was another one of those things.  
  


If she thought about it too much, something inside of her would snap, and she wasn’t sure if it could be repaired after it did.  
  


Stepping into Evelyn’s home again gave her a mixed bag of emotions. Some of them made her stomach clench with excitement, and her breath short with the memories of what they had done on nearly every surface. The rest of them made her throat tight and her chest ache for the phantom pain of her heart during that same period.  
  


“I’ll take your coat,” Evelyn murmured as she came up behind her.   
  


Helen shrugged out of the heavy material and allowed it to be lifted from her shoulders, crossing her arms beneath her chest and standing in the center of the floor like she had never been there in the past.  
  


Evelyn placed both of their coats on the coat hanger near the front door, and stepped up beside her cautiously once she was finished.  
  


“Are you hungry? I can call and get something delivered here. We can turn on a movie and not watch it,” she winked playfully. Helen tried to laugh, but all that happened was a strained smile that she knew didn’t reach her eyes.  
  


Evelyn’s face fell in response, and Helen wondered if she knew that things between them weren’t quite the same and had just been trying to ignore it, too.  
  


They could pretend that things were alright as much as anyone, but standing in the ornate house of a woman she was trying so hard not to love— Helen knew there was nowhere else left to run from the truth.  
  


“If this is about earlier—“ Evelyn started, but cut herself off. Her nostrils flared just a bit with a heavy sigh, and her hands balled into fists at her sides as she seemed to gather her thoughts.  
  


“I… am not… good for you right now,” she said slowly, choosing every word with a precision that Helen could hear. She appreciated the attention to detail, but hearing the words slip from her tongue like molasses made her anxious to hear every single one.  
  


“I know that you want something— that is pure, and healthy, and…” she shot her gaze to the side, no longer looking Helen in the eyes, “I’m trying, Hel. I’m trying.”  
  


Helen closed her eyes as if that would stop her chest from tightening any more, and opened them again as soon as Evelyn’s fingers landed on her hip.  
  


“You can leave whenever you want to,” she said.  
  


Helen knew she wasn’t talking about her home.  
  


“Come here, please,” Helen sighed, cursing whatever it was that kept her tethered to the woman in front of her like if they separated she would bleed out.  
  


Evelyn’s lips tasted like coffee and something with mint. She melted into Helen’s front as if she had been waiting to let go and fall into her for days. Evelyn’s hands both wandered up to cup the underside of Helen’s jaw. She kissed her back with her heart between her teeth.  
  


She wanted Evelyn to take a bite.  
  


Her arms snaked around Evelyn’s small waist and pulled her closer. The arch of her spine was rigid, and Helen knew that to mold her she’d have to be melted down first. She softened the kiss, slowing them down until their lips moved together lazily. Evelyn’s fingers were loose on her jaw, idly stroking her cheeks with her thumbs. Their breathing mingled together until Helen couldn’t tell where her breath started and Evelyn’s began.   
  


Evelyn was more hesitant than she had ever been, not taking charge, but not submitting to her will either.   
  


“Touch me,” Helen whispered between kisses. Her shut eyes only showed her the spattered dancing of colors on the backs of her eyelids, and so she felt more than saw the indecision that came in response. She felt helpless again, begging for something she knew she should have run from long ago.

  
She wasn’t sure if Evelyn was hesitating because of their past, or because she was terrified of their future.  
  


Finally, one of the hands at Helen’s jaw dropped down to her abdomen. Her fingers splayed out across the material of her shirt and she tensed in anticipation. Evelyn’s touch firmed just enough that Helen could feel it, and her hand slipped up to palm one breast posessively.  
  


Helen whined into her mouth, something that was entirely impulsive, and that seemed to shatter the rest of the ice that coated Evelyn’s every movement. Before Helen could make sense of the sudden shift, her back was being draped over the couch cushions. She sunk into them easily, followed by Evelyn’s lithe body molding itself atop hers so perfectly it was a wonder they were ever separated at all.  
  


Evelyn’s lips were at her throat in moments, dragging down the skin there until she reached her collarbone and lavished it with open-mouthed kisses. Her hands were holding her steady on either side of Helen’s torso, gripping onto the couch while she allowed her mouth to drift back up to her’s. Helen’s entire body was aflame, her cheeks surely flushed and her heart pounding angrily in her throat  
  


She hated to admit that she had missed this aggressive version of Evelyn— but what was stranger was that this was somehow still more intimate than what they had been doing for that month of limbo. And Helen took it all like an intravenous drug.   
  


She could hardly breathe correctly, air puffing out in shuddering whispers through her nose. Evelyn was soon back at her lips, and then the warmth of her body disappeared. Helen’s eyes opened immediately.  
  


Evelyn’s eyes were no longer the piercing frozen blue she had become far too used to in moments like this. They were the trickle of creek water, fluid and gentle. Her gaze jumped from place to place on Helen’s body with a reverence that hadn’t been there before. Like she wanted to find every piece of her that she had shattered and meld them back together.  
  


Helen saw that look and knew that she was doomed to love her anyway— no matter how much she tried not to.  
  


Evelyn’s hands grasped the bottom of Helen's long-sleeved shirt, but didn’t tug it up.  
  


“Is this—“ she began to ask.  
  


“I want this,” Helen said, breathless, and Evelyn nodded quickly as if the question had been more for herself than for Helen.  
  


Helen allowed herself to be rid of her shirt. The subtle chill of the living room raised goosebumps on her skin that she felt immediately. Her bra went next, discarded on the floor right on top of her shirt. Evelyn’s hands wandered from her neck, to her breasts, to her stomach up and down like she was memorizing every bump and ridge. With every pass of her hands over her nipples, Helen sucked in a breath quicker than the rest.  
  


If Evelyn noticed, she pretended not to.  
  


The ache between her legs was unbearable, and the sight of Evelyn fully clothed above her, drinking in her naked upper body, did nothing to help.  
  


“I should’ve taken my time with you more,” Evelyn murmured. She was so quiet that Helen wondered if she was talking to herself, but then her eyes flicked up to meet hers and she knew that statement was for her.  
  


“We still have time,” Helen found herself saying without thinking.  
  


It was that reassurance that she wasn’t going anywhere, she supposed, that gave Evelyn the encouragement she needed to continue her ministrations.  
  


“Yeah, we do.”  
  


Her lips descended down between her breasts, pressing lingering kisses there that eventually travelled up the swell of her breast and then wrapped around her nipple. Helen’s breath trembled, her hands digging into whatever part of the couch cushion she could gain purchase on.   
  


Every swipe of Evelyn’s tongue sent a shot of white hot pleasure between her legs, and she went to press her thighs together in order to relieve the ache, but Evelyn’s body was right there blocking her. She felt her smile against her skin.  
  


Her other hand rose to work her other nipple between her thumb and forefinger, and this went on for so long that Helen was positive she would combust right there on the spot.  
  


Her clit throbbed so furiously that she broke and begged, “Evelyn— please,” a moan cut her off when Evelyn shoved her thigh up between her legs. The limb pressed wonderfully up against the thin material of her dress pants, and she jerked her hips up to grind herself against it as much as she could.  
  


She could only get so much relief out of that, though, and after a long moment, she released the cushion and gripped the back of Evelyn’s head. Her downy hair tangled throughout her fingers, and she pushed her head down in a bold demand.  
  


Evelyn withdrew from her nipples and looked up at her with flushed cheeks and an amused sparkle in her gaze. The lazy smile on her cheeks was softened even further by the way that she complied so easily. She left damp kisses down her abdomen, pausing briefly to press a kiss, surprisingly sweet, to her navel and then continuing. Once at her pants’ waistline, she took her time undoing the button and zipper. They slipped down around her waist with a bit of difficulty, Helen could admit this was one of the tighter pairs she owned, and then joined the growing pile of clothes on the floor beside them.  
  


Helen stared down at the vision of Evelyn propped up between her legs, eyes overcome with lust as they devoured every inch of her skin. Her hand remained tangled into her hair, and she allowed herself to relax as she scratched her fingers through Evelyn’s scalp. She hummed in approval before hooking one finger into the scrap of material that was Helen's underwear and moving it to the side. The air hit the wetness that had accumulated there during Evelyn’s earlier work, and Helen shut her eyes in anticipation.  
  


“Look at me,” Evelyn murmured against the inside of her thigh. When she opened her eyes again, her favorite blue ones were staring right back at her, melted and soft.  
  


Evelyn dragged her tongue ever so lightly up her slit, and it took every ounce of control in Helen’s body not to jump off of the couch.  
  


Maintaining her gaze as she did so, Evelyn repeated the action several more times before lingering at her clit and pressing her tongue flat against it. Helen felt herself throb against her mouth, and she slowly gyrated her hips against her face. Her hand clenched in Evelyn’s hair, and she felt her eyelids droop, though she continued to hold Evelyn’s gaze.  
  


Her tongue stiffened so that Helen could grind herself against it easily, and a whine tore from her throat as soon as she wasn’t getting the pleasure she knew that she could be. Taking the hint, Evelyn swiped her tongue back and forth across her clit before taking the entire thing between her lips and jerking her head from side to side.  
  


Helen moaned sharply, her free hand going up to clutch the arm of the sofa above her head and hold on with all of her strength.  
  


“God, Evelyn,” she panted. Somewhere through the haze clouding her mind, Evelyn had discarded her underwear as well, and Helen was completely bare before her fully dressed body.  
  


Then a finger was slowly tracing her entrance, pressing just barely inside, and then slipping back out so teasingly that she whimpered.   
  


“Please—“ she got out before a sharp gasp tore from her throat. Evelyn had slipped two fingers inside of her easily, and the feeling of being filled made her eyes slam shut. She felt herself clench and unclench around her fingers in a disjointed rhythm, and then they were pumping slowly in and out of her. Helen jerked her hips to meet every thrust, and the slow build to orgasm while Evelyn continued to give fine-tuned attention to her clit was felt all the way in her bones.  
  


Evelyn worked her fingers in and out of her entrance. Helen was wet enough that she could hear every movement, and those digits fucked her deeply. Helen’s body was hot all over. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple and disappeared into her hairline. Her abs worked as she pressed herself down onto Evelyn’s fingers, and she felt the pleasure building into something too wild to tame. Every breath became a moan, and Evelyn’s tongue only moved more rapidly against her clit. Helen felt her orgasm come like a tidal wave. It had taken its time to build, but when it crashed over her it was crushing.  
  


Her moan sharpened until it was silent, mouth hung open and eyes squeezed shut as she fell victim to being decimated by its impact. Vision spotty, she blearily opened her eyes only to watch Evelyn stare up at her with a wet mouth and press a third finger into her as well. Helen’s legs spasmed of their own doing. When Evelyn began curling all three fingers up quickly, attacking that divine spot, Helen’s eyes rolled toward the back of her head and she was convinced that she’d never catch a proper breath again. She felt a rush of liquid between her and Evelyn’s hand, and heaved a final strained breath before her arched back finally lowered down to the couch.  
  


“Oh my god,” she panted hoarsely. Her eyes finally opened to see Evelyn looking at her with something so unfamiliarly tender that she grasped the back of her neck and pulled her up until she could press their lips together. Evelyn braced her hand on the side of her shoulder and kissed her back. Helen tasted herself on her lips, something not foreign to her palate, and wrapped her arms around her body tight enough that she could convince herself she would never leave.

 

Evelyn only kissed her harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I'm back at school now, so updates won't be frequent, but I'll try my best to get more chapters out to y'all as soon as I can :)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to a new journey between these two lovely ladies! I can't wait to share this work with you all and branch out from canon with this AU. I hope you enjoy it, much love!
> 
> Tumblr/Twitter/Ko-fi: bakedgarnet <3


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